Switched Circumstances
by Jean-Hime
Summary: Lloyd Irving was determined to accompany his friend Colette on her journey to regenerate the world. He had no idea that wish would be granted in the most unusual of circumstances when he woke up in Colette's room that morning instead of his own...
1. Switched

*Hey, this is my first foray into Tales of Symphonia fanfiction. I've already spent more than a year involving myself with some of the better 'what-if' stories on this site, and since craziness is highly contagious, I finally decided to try my own. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping no one has tried this idea in the section yet, but I know all that's relative. The important part is having fun writing it. So without further ado, here it is...

Oh, and I don't own Tales of Symphonia...*

_**Switched Circumstances**_

**Chapter One: Switched**

Lloyd Irving distinctly remembered his dreams that night. For fourteen years of his life, he had hardly dwelt on the memories locked away inside him of a moment in time where he had lost both his mother and father and was abandoned in the forest. He had only been three years old then, and those images that still remained imprinted in his mind were so fleeting and hard to focus on. His mother had a beautiful face full of love for him, so selfless that she had protected him until the dwarf Dirk took Lloyd as his own son. Now that Lloyd knew that Desians were directly responsible for the death of his mother, his thoughts in the dark of night focused on her, and those thoughts flowed directly into his dreams.

He could feel his body continue to toss and turn as the dreams began to fade, and though his consciousness was awake, his eyes had yet to open. Underneath his back was the soft feeling of a mattress stuffed with feathers. He smiled to himself. His dad must have found him accidentally asleep at his work desk after working into the late hours on Colette's necklace, and carried him up to his own bed for the rest of the night. He must have been so tired that he had never noticed until then how soft the mattress was.

Turning on his side, one of his hands grabbed a fist full of the pillow his head was supported by. That was soft too. Usually he liked his head support harder than that, but at the moment, it was comfortable. The only thing not helping his sleep any was the heat now radiating on his face from a nearby window. He turned the other way, hoping to escape it.

"Child..."

There was the touch of a hand on his back, lightly nudging him. Lloyd twitched, clenching his eyes to keep them from opening, feeling way too groggy. That voice didn't sound like Dirk calling him awake. Perhaps he was imagining things...

"Come on, dear, it's time to wake up," the same voice called out to him. The hand at his back roamed up until it was on the edge of his shoulder, and then shook him with a bit more force.

"Give me a few more minutes...," Lloyd mumbled, trying to swat the hand away. That voice definitely did not belong to Dirk. If it had been the dwarf, Lloyd would already be picking himself off the floor after being kicked out of bed.

The voice uttered something like a muffled chuckle. "But everyone's already downstairs waiting for you. It's the day you've been preparing for. The Journey of Regeneration."

Lloyd immediately opened his eyes, the words 'Journey of Regeneration' ringing a clear bell in him. Today was that day, the day Colette would leave Iselia to go break all the Seals until she finally would be admitted into the Tower of Salvation, and then become an angel to regenerate the world. He had expressed to her last night that he wanted to see her off before she left the village. Perhaps that explained the strange voice that woke him up. Colette had sent another villager to bring him to Iselia to ensure that he would get to say a proper farewell to her.

He turned on his back to see the person he should be most grateful to for such a favor. Of all the people he expected though, it was certainly not Phaidra. But there the old woman was, on the edge of his bed, smiling down at him.

"Good, you're awake," Phaidra said. The old woman leaned heavily on her cane as she made effort to stand up off the bed, and then turned to him, holding forth her hand towards him. "Let's get you dressed and ready to go now."

"Wha...," Lloyd stammered, raising himself up on one elbow... and saw blond hair spilling over his shoulder onto the sheets around him.

Phaidra made a slight 'tsk' with the tip of her tongue. "Colette, did you stay up all last night?"

Lloyd hurriedly looked behind him, hoping to see his friend standing on the other side of the bed, about ready to answer her grandmother cheerfully. But there was no one there, and when he looked to the other side, he quickly realized that he and Phaidra were the only ones in the room. And it was then that he noticed that this room was not his. The sheets and covers of the bed were a light blue touched with faint black polka-dots. Some small stuffed animals hung on a shelf above a small desk. A vase of freshly-picked wildflowers was in the window where the sun's rays filtered through. This was not his room. This was...

Colette's room.

He could feel the color drain out of his face at that precise moment.

Phaidra must have noticed his reaction, because her wrinkled face began to look worried as well. "Dear, is something the matter?"

Jerking the sheets away from his body, Lloyd scrambled over to the foot of the bed and then almost fell to the floor in his hurry. But he managed to stand, and headed towards the mirror near a small vanity that was just about waist-high. He could feel Phaidra's eyes trained on his back, watching him in bewilderment, but at the moment, Lloyd didn't much care. All that mattered was seeing his reflection staring back at him from the clean glass.

His eyes widened and his mouth gaped open like a fish. But the mirror clearly showed him that those eyes and mouth were not his in the slightest. Blue eyes were staring back at him. Not brown. The face that held them was smaller and rounder. Long blond hair cascaded down past his shoulders and down his back, a striking difference to the bed-tossed brown hair he was so familiar with seeing instead.

That face that was his and yet not his was _not_ Lloyd Irving. It was his best friend, Chosen of Regeneration, Colette Brunel.

And the entire body attached to that face was hers as well.

"Colette! Colette, what's wrong?!" Phaidra was hobbling towards him with her cane, responding to his panic.

Lloyd whirled around to face the old woman. His head was a jumbled mess right now from the intense shock to his system, but there was one clear thing that he knew he needed to do. It was like being caught off guard by an enemy in battle, and having to scramble quickly in order to survive the onslaught that was sure to follow. He had to do... say something!

"Colette...?"

"I'm fine, Phai..., I mean, grandmother," Lloyd answered, wincing inwardly at his mistake. He had only just noticed his voice coming out as the high-pitched one he was used to hearing Colette speaking with, but he had no time to freak over that as well. Right now, he was on the defensive. He had to get Phaidra out of the room, _now_, so that he could at least have a moment to think!

The old woman's face didn't look any less concerned. "Are you sure?" she asked gently.

He nodded his head. "Yeah, I'm just fine! I just have to... to..." Nothing was coming to mind, he realized with horrible fear. He looked every which way, trying to think of some excuse, anything to appease the suspicions that just had to be running through Phaidra's mind at the moment. But there was nothing! He could feel the blood rush into his head, and the pounding of his heart began to beat loud in his ears.

"Get dressed, right?"

Lloyd just looked at the old woman.

Phaidra chuckled. "I never expected you to be this nervous." She turned around carefully, and then began hobbling towards the door on the other side of the room. "I'll go tell Raine and Kratos downstairs to keep waiting for you until you're done dressing and gathering your things."

"Ah... o-okay," Lloyd stammered.

When she closed the door behind her after leaving the room, Lloyd just sank to his knees with a dull thud.

One hand gingerly touched his cheek, the cheek that really was not his. It was soft. Too soft. But that was what he felt with hands that were not covered in calluses. And then he jerked, realizing something else.

His left hand. Hurriedly he raised it up and paled for the second time that morning when he found it bare. The red Exsphere that had been his mother's memento, the only thing that had survived with him past her death, was not attached to his hand. There was an empty ache within him just seeing it missing from his hand for the first time in fourteen years.

What had happened to him? He distinctly remembered being Lloyd last night, not just Lloyd in mind, but in body as well. Right after Colette and Genis and the others had left his house for the night, he had sat down at his work desk, drawing out his materials to continue with the project that was a day late for Colette's birthday. He had clapped his hands together, promising to himself that he would have the necklace finished before he would get a wink of sleep last night. Things got a little fuzzy after that, but Lloyd was still fairly certain that he had indeed finished it. Then he had been so exhausted that his head had dropped down hard onto the surface of the desk, and he was out like a light...

And had woken up in the wrong body.

He quickly got back to his feet as another thought occurred to him. If he was here now, in Colette's body... Then where was Colette herself?! It wasn't like her body could carry two consciousnesses, right?

'Colette? Colette?!'

Nothing in his mind answered back, so he figured the answer was a safe 'no.'

That then left one remaining place where Colette's own consciousness would be... It was also the answer to the other imposing question hard on his mind. If he was here now, in Colette's body in her own home in the village, then it only stood to reason that his left-behind body back in the forest had a new occupant to fill it now too. What were the chances that Colette was _not_ going to wake up in his own body today?!

He felt dizzy just thinking about it. It was only when he was under pressure that he was at his most focused. So now he just had to force himself to think on what he was going to do about this very unique situation.

First thing's first. Get dressed.

He thought that was so simple until he looked down at himself and got a full reminder _again_ that this was not his body.

He was... Colette was... wearing nothing but a long white undergown with her black stockings underneath. He was very much grateful that the dress wasn't sheer enough to cause more embarrassment to the blush already developing on his face. But he was still too aware, nonetheless, that Colette had the body of a sixteen-year old young woman. The body was not as... developed... as other women's, but still...

There was one thing he did decide then. He was not even going to think about stripping down to change.

Thus he walked back over to the vanity and opened the first drawer he saw. But he closed that one hurriedly, his blush back again in full force. Next drawer then. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the dress Colette usually wore folded up neatly at the bottom of it. He would have much rather have seen his familiar red suspenders staring back at him instead, but at the moment, he was going for the 'I'm not crazy and everything's normal' look. It was now his goal to act as close to Colette's character as he possibly could before he could somehow meet up with her again. Then maybe that was all they needed to switch back. At least he hoped...

He was supposed to come say goodbye to her just before she left the village anyway, he realized. Then perhaps Colette would figure out to come find him before things started happening... Color drained his face again. The _pilgrimage_... As things stood now, _he_ was the Chosen of Regeneration...

Quickly he threw the dress over his head, and then focused on fastening it properly to get his thoughts off of panic mode again. He felt like such a nervous wreck today, which was just as unsettling a problem as waking up in the wrong body. Gingerly he zipped up the hidden zipper of the white dress, and stopped when one knuckle brushed against something attached to his neck. It was then that memories flooded him of yesterday's earlier events.

The bright light that had flooded through the window of the schoolhouse, interrupting one of Raine's boring lectures. A band of Desians invading the Temple of Martel in an attempt to kill the Chosen. Kratos arriving in the nick of time to save them. He and Genis accompanying Colette and the mystery mercenary into inside the temple. Colette standing before the angel named Remiel, and the Cruxis Crystal becoming attached to the base of her neck...

Which was now _his _neck. Holding his hand against the red crystal, Lloyd could feel a faint hum of power emanating from it. Almost like that from which he felt from his own Exsphere attached to his hand.

After fastening the three buttons each of his white boots, Lloyd opened the door to outside his room and appeared in the small corridor overlooking the staircase to the bottom floor. Downstairs were voices belonging to Phaidra, Colette's human father Frank, and Raine. They were engaged in conversation, and from what Lloyd could gather, was just mindless smalltalk. Everyone was just really waiting around down there for him.

He walked down the stairs, and emerged in the kitchen/dining room/living area. Kratos was there as well, propped up against the wall with his arms crossed and eyes closed. But they opened at the sound of Lloyd's approach, and his strange red eyes peered curiously at Lloyd. As if they were searching right through him... This sent a small shiver down Lloyd's spine, but he forced himself to ignore the swordsman as he walked to the wooden table where the other three adults were sitting.

Frank instantly stood up. "There you are," he exclaimed, and came over to draw Lloyd into his arms. At first, Lloyd's mind went blank again on how to respond, but after reminding himself that this man was now supposed to be his father, he returned the hug. He just imagined it to be Dirk instead.

"We set you aside some breakfast," Phaidra said after Frank had released him, indicating a plate of eggs, ham, and bacon set out on the table. There was also a glass of milk and some fruit beside the plate.

"It's going to be a long journey," Raine smiled, looking up at Lloyd from where she still sat at the table. "Better to start it off right."

Lloyd couldn't argue with that, especially with such an appetizing plate of food being offered him. He quickly sat down at the table, picked up his silverware in both hands, and set upon the task of eating it. No one had ever cooked him breakfast before. If he ever wanted food, he either had to rely on himself, Dirk when the dwarf had the time, or Genis when the elf was feeling particularly generous. 'Itadakimasu,' then.

There were a few raised eyebrows as he dug eagerly into the food, but Phaidra just chuckled from across the table. They left him alone to eat for the next five minutes, the adults patiently drinking mugs of coffee, or in Kratos' case, still staring at him.

'Man, he's going to spoil the food,' Lloyd thought to himself, starting to squirm. When he tried to meet eye contact with the mercenary, Kratos simply looked away. Lloyd frowned and returned his attention to the plate. He actually began to wonder if Kratos suspected what had really happened to Colette's body, that Lloyd was playing the part of the Chosen instead. But that was impossible, right? He had only met Kratos yesterday, at the entrance of the temple. How would the mercenary know something was different about 'Colette' when the family who had raised Colette all her life weren't giving him weird looks or being suspicious. At least, that was what he hoped.

He finished the breakfast, cleaning the plate, and then held it out to Frank who had risen out of his chair to receive it. "That was really good," he admonished, giving his best smile. He had no idea how that would look on Colette's face, but apparently it was satisfactory enough for Frank and Phaidra.

"Would you like a second helping before you leave?" Phaidra asked.

He almost said yes, but then he paused to think about it. Truth be told, he wasn't as hungry as he expected he would be. Finishing all the food on that plate had left him more than satisfied. So he shook his head.

Raine rose out of her chair, pushing it back under the table in its original position. "Well then, now that you've finished your breakfast, we can make ready to leave." She was already crossing the room to retrieve the large healing staff propped up against one of the windows, while at the same time Kratos had pushed himself off the wall and adjusted the long sword strapped to his person. "It will be a long journey, so make sure you have everything."

Lloyd hesitantly stood up from his own chair, going blank again on what he was to do now. But Frank came to stand right behind him, placing a gentle hand on Lloyd's shoulder. "We placed your weapons and guard right next to the front door before you came downstairs. There's also a pouch filled with apple and orange gels for the journey."

"And a sack of Gald for emergencies," Phaidra imputed, still sitting down at the table.

"Th-thank you," Lloyd forced himself to say. He had no clue what else to do but go to where the equipment was gathered and start adjusting it to himself. How did Colette even carry around her two rings anyway? And better yet, which arm, the right or the left, did she fasten the guard onto?

In the end, he just put the rings in the pack with the other equipment, and placed the guard on the bottom of his left arm.

"Let's be underway, then," Kratos said, the first one to walk to the door's handle. He pushed the door forward and then held it open for Raine to pass through, and then looked expectantly at Lloyd to follow his teacher outside as well. Even Frank and Phaidra were waiting for him. Taking a deep breath, Lloyd stepped outside into the bright morning sunlight of Iselia.

There was a small crowd waiting for him outside the house. About five children from his school, some of the villagers that had taken time off from their normal working activities, and the Mayor of Iselia at their head. When he stood nervously before them, they started clapping and chanting his... Colette's... name.

Raine came to stand before him, holding out her hands against the crowd. "Everyone, please. You can all come up and give your individual farewells to Colette one at a time."

The small group lined up in a mini procession and began to visit him one-by-one. Lloyd felt like he had been switched to 'autopilot' as each visitor came to say goodbye. He would make himself smile at each one's face, even though he was not familiar with any of them; he knew their faces in passing, but Lloyd had never really known the villagers like Colette seemed to. The adults would wish him blessings of a safe journey, sometimes placing small gifts into his hand like food or small amounts of Gald, and then in turn expect him to pray for their own families. Lloyd stumbled through those prayers, but by the happiness on the villagers' faces, he supposed he could have mumbled anything and they would have been just fine with it.

The children from his school, however, were different. They all were very insistent on hugging him, and then they would express how different Iselia would be without him.

"Are you going to be gone long?" one of the younger children asked, looking up at him with large eyes.

"I guess," Lloyd answered, unsure how long Journeys of Regeneration actually took. In a way, he was just as much out of the loop about this pilgrimage as the child was.

A ten-year old girl gave him a hand full of daises. "For you," she said proudly with a wide smile.

"Uh... thanks," he said, taking them with a hesitant smile. What the heck was he supposed to do with _these_, then?

After all the gathered villagers were finally done, the Mayor shooed them away back to their homes. Lloyd watched them look back at him hesitantly, as if they would never see him again, and then they turned their heads away and left the area of the house to their earlier business. Now all who remained was the Mayor, who was clearing his throat, Raine and Kratos, and Phaidra and Frank standing right behind him.

"Now, then...," the Mayor began to speak stuffily.

"Colette!!"

Lloyd hurriedly turned towards the sound of the familiar voice, relief flooding over him to see his best friend Genis running in his direction. "Genis!" he called back.

The twelve-year old elf was upon Lloyd in a heartbeat, although he didn't expect Genis to hug him. "I'm so glad I arrived before you left," Genis exclaimed when he broke away.

"Genis, what are you doing here?" Raine asked, coming up behind Lloyd to speak to her younger brother.

"I came to say goodbye, what else?" The short elf then turned in Raine's direction, giving his sister a small glare. "I _was_ going to come by at the same time you did, Raine, but you didn't even bother to wake me!" He scratched the back of his head with a frown, eyes focusing back on Lloyd. "I almost didn't get to be here in time..."

Awkward, Lloyd tried to avoid his friend's eyes when he was currently... someone else. "I'm glad you came, Genis," he said, meaning it.

"Now if you'll excuse us...," the Mayor interrupted, coming to stand next to Lloyd and trying to push him away from Genis.

"Wait!" Lloyd exclaimed, inadvertently swatting the Mayor's hand away as he just realized something. He ignored the impatient look on the man's face for the moment. "Where's... Where's 'Lloyd'?!" he demanded the elf. It sounded so weird to be saying his own name with someone else's voice, and talking to Genis about 'himself' no less.

Genis' eyebrows furrowed. "Lloyd? Come to think of it, I never saw him around Iselia this morning..."

"What?!" Lloyd could feel panic starting to flow through his system again. He quickly turned away from Genis, his foreign hands coming up to touch the area around his temples. His only hope in a million to find some way to return to normal, his real body with the wrong consciousness to be sure, was nowhere in sight. If Colette was still at his house in the forest, and not even woken up yet, then there was no way she was going to make it in time to stop everyone before both Raine and Kratos forced him forward on the pilgrimage.

"Don't you remember? You said that you were going to tell him to come to the house at noon instead of early morning so that you would have no regrets," Phaidra spoke up behind him. Lloyd whirled around to face the old woman, hardly believing his ears. "It wasn't what I would have suggested you do, but I do understand you wanting to make a clean break with him."

Lloyd pressed his hand to his face. "Why would she do such a thing...?" he murmured to himself. If what Phaidra said was correct, then it was Colette's intention all along to leave him behind in Iselia without even a final word of farewell. Instead he would have headed to her house at noon, necklace in hand and ready to present to her, only to find her long gone.

"You also left a note for him in my keeping, to give to Lloyd when he would come by to see you," Phaidra added.

"Can I see it?"

Phaidra looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Just to make sure there aren't any mistakes," he covered, holding out his hand.

With a nod, Phaidra rummaged a hand through one of the pockets of her dress and pulled out a neatly folded letter. Lloyd snatched it out of her hand, maybe a little too quickly. He unfolded the note and ran his eyes over the distinct writing that he would recognize anywhere as Colette's.

_Dear Lloyd,_ _By the time you read this, I will have already left on my journey. I'm sorry for lying to you. The world regeneration journey is full of peril—many Chosens have failed. I care about you too deeply to let you get involved. I'm going to do my best to stop the monsters and the Desians, so I want you to live a happy and peaceful life in the regenerated world. Thank you so much for your friendship and kindness all these years. I'm really lucky to have met you._ _Farewell,_ _Colette_

Lloyd slowly folded the note back into its original position and handed it numbly to Phaidra. "It's fine," he told her, although his voice sounded like it was shaking. Stupid Colette! She knew him so well, knew that he would do anything to go on the pilgrimage with her. Even if Kratos refused, as he was always prone to do, Lloyd would have still carried his possessions on his shoulders and followed them at a distance for as long as he had to. It was his wish to see Colette become an angel and regenerate the world. Well now, by someone's idea of a sick and twisted joke, he just might be going on that pilgrimage after all.

"Genis."

The elf looked back at him curiously, obviously having observed Lloyd's reaction to reading Colette's note.

"Go to Lloyd's house and bring him back here as soon as possible."

"What...?"

"Just hurry!"

Genis, now more confused then before, started running in the direction of the Iselia Forest by the insistent tone in Lloyd's voice. But Lloyd could not breathe a sigh of relief right now. He still had one more thing to do, and that was to try to stall Raine and Kratos before they left the village, and coincidentally, the _real_ Chosen behind.

He turned around to see the Mayor in a discussion with Raine and Phaidra and Frank, while Kratos was back to staring at him again.

Instead of averting his gaze from Lloyd, Kratos approached him instead. "Are you ready to leave now, Chosen?" he asked.

"No, I -"

"Colette, we need to leave now if we want to reach Triet by nightfall," Raine interrupted, breaking off the conversation with the other three adults and coming to stand next to Kratos. She then smiled at him in a knowing fashion. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet already?"

Lloyd frowned. "I need to wait for Genis and Lloyd to return back..."

Kratos suddenly took the top of his arm and began to drag him forward. "Those two are no longer any of our concern," he said with not even a shred of emotion. "You are the Chosen, and your fate is the undergo the Journey of Regeneration while your two friends live out the rest of their normal lives here in the village."

Before Lloyd could make an angry sound of retort for the mercenary he already disliked from the beginning, or at least seize his hand away from the older man's grip, both Phaidra and Frank were upon him to say their final farewells. The hugs they gave him were brief and a little construed, but Lloyd found them nice nonetheless when he had lived almost all of his life with no family of his own to receive them from.

"Be safe, Colette," Phaidra told him with a soft smile.

"We will protect Colette to the best of our abilities," Raine told Phaidra and Frank, then proceeded to pull Lloyd away from the two.

Frank waved at Lloyd as he and his guardians began to take the path away from the house and towards the plains lying outside the village. Then the man placed an arm over Phaidra's shoulders and proceeded to lead the old woman back into the house. Even the Mayor was walking away, slapping one hand against the other as if he had completed some great task just by getting rid of them. They were all leaving him, and Lloyd himself was now only in the company of his two guardians for the rest of the pilgrimage. For Colette's pilgrimage. He couldn't even drag his feet in the dirt to stall them; it was clear that both Raine and Kratos were set to leave Iselia whether he was in agreement with them or not. And telling them that he was not 'Colette' would change nothing. His neck bore the Cruxis Crystal around it, proclaiming that he was the next heir to the Mana Lineage. And that was all it took to make him the Chosen.

He wished the entire morning had just been one sleep-deprived nightmare he had dreamed up on the surface of his work bench. But that was just one too many wishes to be granted when his first had already gone horribly haywire in the first place...

********************************************

And that's the beginning. Please leave a review if you find any mistakes, especially story related ones. Tales of Symphonia is a little complicated to get everything right. But most importantly, please review if you liked it so far, and are interested in any more.


	2. Switched Part 2

*Now I finally bring you Chapter 2 of _Switched Circumstances_! I totally meant for this to be typed up and out a few days after the first one, but lo and behold came the first day of classes... Just a little bit of an explanation. I can't update as frequently as I would like to because of how busy this semester is going to be for me. I'll just tell you my current Major is Chemical Engineering, and you might be able to understand better what my workload looks like. So my apologies to those people who wanted it out sooner. It's just writing fanfiction, unfortunately, has to take priority_ after_ tons of homework...

Second, I want to say a big thank you to my first chapter reviewers! Your kind words and praise were more than I expected. Thus I will try to give you what I hope is my best work. Also thanks to those that favorited my story and/or put it on their watch lists... That's an honor.

And thirdly, as we all know quite well, I _don't_ own Tales of Symphonia.*

_**Switched Circumstances**_

**Chapter Two: Switched – Part 2**

It was an uneasy bout of sleep that Colette Brunel slipped into when she had finally thrown herself onto her bed, late at night when she could see the moon Tethe'alla hanging high in the sky outside her window. Her grandmother Phaidra had suggested she get to bed early in order to have plenty of rest for the pilgrimage setting out tomorrow, and thus Colette had closed herself off in her room after a quiet supper. She wanted to go to sleep as soon as possible. She really did. But there were waves of guilt clouding her mind that made it very hard for her to relax enough to slip into peaceful oblivion.

She wished she had never lied to her friend Lloyd about leaving the village at noon instead of close after sunrise. But even though he understood her wishes, and those of the adults of Iselia, to not accompany her on her journey, she could still see in the depths of his eyes that that would never be enough to stop him. Once Lloyd had made up his mind about something, it was practically ingrained in his will for life. Collete knew this even before their final farewell, and that was why she had spent most of the later afternoon composing a goodbye letter for him. Her best friend would feel betrayed and confused when he would arrive at her house the next morning, having found no trace of herself or her guardians left in Iselia, and thus that letter would explain everything to him.

Well, not _everything_.

But she hoped it would be enough, anyhow. Lloyd deserved a peaceful life in Iselia, despite his adventurous and caring heart. It would be too cruel of Colette to involve him in her life any longer now that she was truly, in both name and appearance, the Chosen of Regeneration. Especially with the way she felt about him...

Finally, she did sleep. And only as a means to an end so that one day would pass quickly to the next.

It was the distinct smells of flowers and pine that brought her out of the uncomfortable reverie of unconsciousness. Chirping of birds and clicking of insects could be heard coming from outside the house. Automatically, she wrinkled her nose. Her senses were beginning to flood with sensations that seemed to be a little foreign to waking up on an average morning in her home in Iselia.

Her eyes slowly opened. Light was flooding the room, reflecting onto the wooden wall above her head.

With some effort, she lifted her head off the desk she had suddenly found herself fast asleep on. Was she having another dream, she wondered with confusion. She distinctly remembered herself sleeping in her own bed, and even if by some chance she had actually been too tired to recall dozing at the desk instead, the one she currently found herself sitting at was _not_ hers. She tried to keep the surface of the desk clean for her grandmother's sake. But this other desk was covered in strange instruments: pliers, a pair of scissors, a sharp wood knife with its blade turned out towards her, glue, and some other unrecognizable things that she might have seen her father Frank handling around the house from time to time. There were also separated bins filled with nails, chain links, screws, bits and pieces of scrap metal...

And lying in the center of it all, amongst the clutter of the desk but yet separated from it in a sort of reverence, was a necklace. A large red gem was encased in a shell of gold, attached to the top with a small chain made of the same material.

"_So what about you, Lloyd? You promised to make her a necklace, right?"_

"_Uh, it's... it's almost done. Uh, I'll give it to you... tomorrow, before you leave. I swear!"_

Yesterday's conversation came back to her, and reminded Colette of what she had almost never gotten to see. There was no doubt that this was the necklace that Lloyd had intended for her sixteenth birthday. She could tell, even without an eye for jewelry and crafts, that it had been made with loving care, fashioned with a purpose to make its owner happy.

She smiled, tenderly placing the necklace into her red-gloved hand.

_Red-gloved hand?!_

The necklace made a dull thud against the desk's surface as it slipped out of her grasp.

Shakily, Colette rose both hands to several inches away from her face, unable to keep them still. Large hands, capable hands, strong hands, protected from life's little accidents by the material that separated bare skin from the outside air. But they were not foreign hands in the least. Colette had already grown to know them fondly when she had instead seen them used by the young man who tended to occupy her thoughts as frequently as the goddess Martel did herself.

Slowly so as to help the shock not be so sudden, she pushed back the chair from the desk as impossible suspicions took hold of her thoughts. And she was glad she had taken the precaution. Colette took in everything as best as she could: the gloved hands connected to a long-sleeved shirt of the same exact color, coated with small gold buttons and held against the chest tightly with suspenders; black pants fastened high up on her waist; the knee-high boots of the same red color as her shirt and gloves. Underneath that clothing, Colette thought with a blush, was a distinctly masculine body.

She rose her fingers to the top of her head and kneaded them through the coarse uplifting of Lloyd's natural hair-style. She traced a finger against the outline of broad shoulders, lingering down to muscled upper arms. There was no longer a Cruxis Crystal joined to her neck, but the high tuft of the red shirt instead. The last distinguishing feature was the large red crystal embedded with a Keycrest over the left hand. Many times before, Colette had seen that same special Exsphere covered over with scraps of cloth. This morning, though, it was out in the open, and sending faint waves of power that she could feel beneath the surface of her hand.

Lloyd Irving. She was her friend Lloyd Irving. Without any cause for such a daydream, Colette had somehow assumed her best friend's body.

She leaned the chair back into the desk again and let her head slump back onto its surface.

Could this have been a test given to her by the Goddess Martel, she wondered. It seemed that only the goddess that slept, waiting to be woken, would have the kind of power to cause something so impossible so fluidly, where all it took was one night of deep sleep to switch a body. Or perhaps the Desians in their human ranch close to the village, not content with her living and summoning back to Sylvarant the Tower of Salvation...

_Stop it! You're coming to stupid conclusions_, she told herself. She clenched her eyes shut. Was there anything more pressing to worry about larger than _this_...?

And then her eyes widened.

It wasn't possible...!

Fate wouldn't be so cruel! To her, to Lloyd, to all Iselia's villagers, to the whole of Sylvarant?!

If she was _here_, in Lloyd's body, then that meant that this body's original owner was also displaced in a body that did not belong to him. That would be Colette's body, asleep in the covers of her familiar bed, just about to be woken by her grandmother so that she would have ample time to prepare herself to leave Iselia for the Journey of Regeneration.

Lloyd would be the one who Phaidra would find asleep in place of her grandmother, although the old woman would never know that for herself. And then Lloyd, because he now bore the Cruxis Crystal on his own neck, would have no choice but to accept the pilgrimage as his own.

_No!! That can't happen!_ Collete thought with horror. But it was even more horrifying to turn and see the morning sun outside her window not at the edge of the world's horizon, but midway in its ascent to the heavens instead. Colette had overslept!

She twisted in her chair as fast as she could, intending to fly out of it and leave the house with all the speed she could possibly muster. But the launch was aborted quite suddenly when footsteps coming up the nearby stairs startled her, and she ended up falling to the floor with her legs still tangled around the chair.

Someone's shadow descended over her crumpled form.

"What the heck are you doing, Lloyd?!" a young boy's voice yelled. Colette picked herself halfway off the floor with a deep-voiced grunt, finding Genis standing right in front of her. Impatiently.

"Genis?" she managed to say in her embarrassment and surprise.

The small elf looked from her, to the chair overturned on its side by her feet, and then back to her face. But instead of shaking his head like he was prone to do around Colette's imminent klutz attacks, he narrowed his eyes and reached down to her. "I can't believe you were still asleep?!" he exclaimed, grasping one of her arms and giving it an uncharacteristic pull of strength that helped her stand off the floor with a jerk. "Don't tell me you forgot what day it was?"

Of course she _knew_ what day it was! But what was more important was to force herself to shove aside everything that was now vexing her: the strange but familiar body she now possessed, Genis affirming her as his best friend 'Lloyd,' the real Lloyd Irving about to undertake the same pilgrimage she had taken so many steps to prevent him from going on...

"What's going on, Genis?" she asked, cutting him off from saying anything else.

"Duh! They left without you! Even though Colette wanted me to bring you back to Iselia before she left!" Genis told her, waving his arms wildly.

She ran past him towards the staircase without waiting to hear another word.

"Lloyd! Wait up...!"

She might still have time to reach Lloyd, she thought to herself with urgency. Lloyd obviously was very much aware of the situation the two now shared, and now he needed her to reach him before things got really out of hand. She needed to reach him before Kratos and Raine forced him out of the village...

So absorbed in making it out the door, and not so much in crossing the main of the house, she suddenly slipped on the first step down she took. It was a hard fall down the rest of them from there.

"Lloyd!!"

A few minutes later, she had managed to sit beside the base of the steps, rubbing at the knot that was beginning to develop at the back of her... Lloyd's neck. It was all her own pain to bear, though. Genis was kneeling beside her, his slight agitation and impatience now having whittled down to actual concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

Colette smiled back at him. "I'm fine, Genis," she assured him with the easy-off-her-tongue half truth. For emphasis, she pulled her hand away from her head, willing it to stay still on the floor instead of addressing the itch and pain still pounding away at her cranium. "I was just in too much of a hurry..."

The front door, which was conveniently placed directly across from the staircase, banged open. Dirk's short but stout figure blocked out the morning's rays as he stood there, mirroring Genis' same concern. He crossed the whole room to her side in just a few long strides. "When I heard the noise from outside, I thought something bad had happened. Are you alright, son?" Dirk asked in his distinct dwarven accent.

"Just great, D-Dad," Colette stammered, quickly rising to her feet. _Son?_ She was glad she had gone for a closed-eyes smile, otherwise she never would have been able to keep the surprise from affecting her face. But then again, she was 'Lloyd' now, and she so did not want to worry the kind dwarf...

"You be careful leaving, alright?"

She nodded, and moved to pass him to the now open door.

"Now wait just a minute." Dirk had quickly taken hold of the hand closest to him, and pulled Colette back until she was standing right where she had started.

Her heart could have stopped at that moment. At once, she was afraid she had left some clue, made some senseless mistake that could have led Dirk to make the correct assumption that something was wrong with his 'son.' But the dwarf just crossed the room to the kitchen table, where a single blue knapsack lay waiting on the table's surface, neatly tied together with a small knot at the top. He picked it up with one hand and then placed it into Colette's awaiting ones, which really didn't know what they were receiving.

"They're supplies for your journey," Dirk told her.

Colette looked down at the small pack, feeling all the different shapes of parchment, gels, and Gald within the folds of fabric. The 'journey' that Dirk mentioned could not just be a little one-day excursion, as evidenced by the amount of supplies he had given her.

"For the Journey of Regeneration," she realized, looking back up at Dirk. So Lloyd had been planning to go with her on her pilgrimage all along, just as she had suspected. And what was worse was that the one man that might have had a chance at stopping Lloyd had instead given his 'son' full support in the endeavor. Instead of keeping him in the forest where things were undoubtedly safer.

Dirk nodded. "I ain't gonna keep you here forever, I've realized that. The only way you can really discover things for yourself is to have a closer glimpse at the world around ya. I thought I might as well give you my blessing, as you would have left with or without it anyway." He slightly chuckled.

She, however, could not feel that same humor. Dirk, for all his intelligence and wisdom that Colette admired so highly in the dwarf, still could not understand what a journey like the one she was supposed to undertake could do to Lloyd. The dwarf did not know the risks, did not know the pressure, did not know the _hardships_ that would come with the Journey of Regeneration. Only the Chosen and his or her closest guardians did. Otherwise, it was simply regarded as a trial of fame and honor and hope. But hope for whom...? Certainly not for Colette, and there would be none for Lloyd either if he accompanied her as well.

"I also got something else for ya," Dirk said, looking a little confused that she was not as excited as she was supposed to be. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small golden piece of metal that fit in the middle of the palm of his hand.

"That's the Keycrest for Marble!" Genis exclaimed happily.

_Keycrest for Marble_? Colette hesitantly accepted it, and upon closer inspection, saw that the elf was right. She, like most of the people in the whole of Sylvarant, did not wear a Keycrest nor possess an Exsphere, but she knew enough about them from Lloyd and his own special Exsphere. Which was now _her_ Exsphere, imagine that.

She did not know who this 'Marble' was, but she could not be caught forgetting something that she was already supposed to know. Even if Lloyd was notorious for forgetting everything but the important stuff, give or take what that definition could be applied to. "Marble, right...," she chuckled uneasily. (She could not giggle anymore in this body, like she would have instead.)

After putting away all her new things on her person, she also just then noticed that Lloyd's main gear, his duo swords and armor, was already equipped. He probably always fell asleep with those things close to his side, but even if he didn't, Colette had to thank Martel that her sometimes irresponsible friend had fallen asleep last night the way he did. Could she want to imagine what she would have had to deal with when it came to putting on those suspenders, strapping those belts intricately to her waist...?

"Lloyd, come on, let's get going," Genis told her, taking her hand and interrupting her from her thoughts. He started to lead her towards the open front door.

"Lloyd!"

She turned around to face Dirk in between the doorway.

"Don't ever forget Dwarven Vow #7!"

For the first time that morning, Colette genuinely smiled. "Goodness and love will always win," she repeated, practically reciting the words from heart. It was her favorite of the dwarven vows that Lloyd generally used around her and Genis, because she genuinely wanted to believe it. Even when the world around her seemed to hold so much evil and destruction, there was still faith that preserving those two ideals would eventually reverse everything horrible that was happening around them. It was the same wish she carried deep within her heart for when she would eventually complete the Journey of Regeneration and awake Martel. If she ever got back to her own body...

"Always remember that. And also know that you have a home to come back to, should you ever need it, for whatever reason," Dirk told her sincerely.

She waved goodbye to Dirk as she stepped out the doorway into the morning sunlight being filtered through the tall trees overhead. The clearing where Dirk's and Lloyd's house rested was as vibrant as ever, the grass swaying in gentle breezes while the surrounding forest rustled with activity. Genis was waiting for her beside the small wooden bridge that crossed the brook that wound around the house and then deeper into the forest.

But just before she could tell him that she was ready to leave, something out of the corner of her eye made her stop.

Noishe, Lloyd's giant white-and-green-furred dog, was standing at the edge of the trail that led away from the house, looking back at her. His large ears were folded back, his four legs were slightly bent in a crouch, and a low whine escaped him. It was not a cry of aggravation or fear, but rather one more borne of confusion. Colette could only guess this for all the times she had seen Noishe outside the village in Lloyd's companionship, and even then, it was not enough to understand the dog fully. Even Lloyd admitted to that.

"Whoa, what's wrong with Noishe?" Genis asked, noticing the dog's strange behavior as well.

Colette shook her head. "I-I don't know."

The dog slowly approached her with caution, deliberately keeping a small distance as he sniffed the ground around her. He rotated around her, and Colette followed his movements slowly as well, turning as the dog turned. She could not help thinking that Noishe somehow _knew_ that she was not the same 'Lloyd' that was his true master. But would something like that truly be given away by smell?

Knowing that Genis was waiting for her to initiate some kind of positive contact with the dog, because every moment she just stood their clueless made her more suspicious, she reached out her hand to Noishe. "It's alright, Noishe," she said with her best smile. "It's me, Lloyd."

Would Noishe be able to tell if she was lying?

Noishe hesitated, but he eventually approached close enough to sniff her hand. This he did for several seconds, but by the time he was finished, the dog was beginning to relax. Not immediately so, but it was a noticeable difference. Then Noishe bowed his head enough to slip under her hand, whining again as he did so.

Colette breathed a silent prayer of thanks to Martel as she gave Noishe's fur a few soft strokes of her hand. "We can go now," she told Genis, looking back at her friend.

"Yeah, Colette and the others could be a long distance from Iselia by now," Genis commented. He started walking forward only when Colette had caught up by his side, and Noishe followed a few feet behind them at the back.

_For everyone's sakes, I hope not_, Colette thought to herself with a frown. _Especially for yours, Lloyd... Especially for yours._

********************

Dirk watched from the open doorway as his seventeen-year old son, who was not the son of his body but the son of his heart, began to leave the place that had always been his home. In the mornings of days past, the dwarf used to assume the same stance of resting against the wooden frame with arms crossed, seeing Lloyd off silently as the boy started the trek through Iselia Forest to his schoolhouse in the village. But those instances were far different from this one today. Fourteen years ago Lloyd had suddenly become a part of Dirk's life by complete chance, but now the young man was slipping as effortlessly out of it as he had entered it. Even if it wasn't a clean separation but merely a long absence from home.

But there was something else that made the dwarf uneasy just as Lloyd and his best friend and his canine companion began to disappear from sight. Dirk wasn't much of one for suspicions, but...

"It's worrying me nonetheless. That boy has never once left the house without saying goodbye to his mother," he said to himself. He was of course referring to the large memorial tombstone outside the house where Lloyd's mother Anna was laid to rest. Lloyd had made a tradition out of attending to the grave every day, placing freshly-picked flowers before it while praying for guidance from his mother's spirit. That Lloyd would have somehow forgotten something so important, so substantial, to him... Especially on this important day when Lloyd would leave Iselia behind him...

"An ill omen...," Dirk muttered. "For that lad's sake, I hope my guess is wrong."

He turned away from the door and back to the inside of his house, now having to get used to the emptiness of it all before Lloyd and Anna had both affected his life so greatly.

**********************

Second chapter, done. I thought about adding a little more, but it seemed a good place to stop, even though this chapter is a bit shorter than the first. Third chapter is where all the chaos starts happening. For Colette at least. (Starts laughing evilly to herself.) Please do leave a review, especially if there is a mistake in the story or something else is amiss. I can't claim to get every detail right... And review if you liked the chapter too, or have some suggestions about the future of this story.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's back to that mountain of homework waiting for me...


	3. Bewildered

*Wow, it's done. And let me tell you, there's a lot in this chapter. I really didn't want to type the second half of it, but getting Colette and Genis out of Iselia was a necessity. And, once again, I blame school for the large gap between the chapters. I'll work on getting chapter 4 out sooner. I don't own Tales of Symphonia.*

_**Switched Circumstances**_

**Chapter 3: Bewildered**

He had always considered himself the greatest master of the sword. It was not something that others came to see him as, or what he imagined himself to be, but merely because it _was _so. There could never be another human or half-elf, save for one, who could have the experience of years upon imagining in order to increase limitless potential, to outlive other masters and teachers and their own students, to even exist beyond his own successors. For over four thousand years, he had gathered together unto himself all knowledge of swordplay, and in those years, had mastered all there was to know. No one else could ever live long enough to challenge him. It was just plain and simple fact that he was one of the best warriors the worlds would ever produce because he might as well live forever, and never be bested at all.

But that didn't necessary mean that for all his talent and knowledge, he still wasn't thrown off guard sometimes.

Kratos Aurion quickly dodged the fine edge of the wayward chakram just as it was about to knick his cheek. He almost didn't anticipate the attack, but millennia of dodging other missiles had kept his reflexes finely tuned. He had twirled out of the chakram's trajectory even before he realized that it was headed straight towards him.

And then he spared a glance away from the monster he was currently fighting to see the chakram turn in midair and return to its embarrassed owner. But it was only a glance before his attention had to shift back to the wolf he was engaging, and he finished that in three seconds anyway with a quick stab of his sword to its heart. If he had thought about it, he might have played around with it for at least another half a minute, to give the illusion that he was only as skilled of a fighter as one who had lived for close to thirty years. But that was too much time to waste with a simple enemy when his real problem lay in the blond that was about ready to take aim at the wolf if he didn't.

So, wolf defeated, along with the other minions of its attack party, Kratos coolly sheathed his sword. Behind him, the Chosen just stumbled in collecting her dual rings in her hands, one of them rolling out of her grasp towards the swordsman. He had observed yesterday that she was naturally clumsy, with an inclination to trip over her own feet, but he wondered if today's battle had anything to do with it. And not just this one. The last twenty-three random encounters had all been similar.

Having taught pupils of the sword countless times before, he could recognize all the signs of a beginner in combat. He witnessed Colette stumble through her attacks as one who was not even familiar with her own weapon. She would either overestimate or underestimate her throws, or her aim would be off, a little too much to the right or the left, not even taking into effect the wind or other natural occurrences. But the most bothersome thing to watch was when the monsters came too close to the young woman. It was as if she lost all conscious thought: instead of putting some distance between her and the enemies, she would assume some kind of expression of frustration, using her rings to try to chop through the monsters as if they were swords instead. But she wouldn't have the strength to finish a successful kill, so Kratos generally had to interfere at that point of the battle.

He didn't know how to handle her after that. She wasn't one of his students, and she certainly didn't act as if she wanted to be one either. When he had first tried to point out her obvious mistakes, she had glared at him. The Chosen they said was as pure and angelic as Martel, _glaring _at him.

Their other companion, Raine Sage, was no help at all. Like Kratos, she obviously noticed that _something_ was different about their charge. Raine had lived among Colette for many years now; it was clear from the way the half elf frowned, (for she was a half elf, and not a real elf as she claimed), that a list was now being accumulated of all the reasons Colette could be acting so strange. But the easiest excuse to believe was that Colette was simply anxious of her journey, so why not would her fighting style be affected?

That was all fine for a one-lifetime living being to believe, but Kratos had either the blessing or the curse not to be included in that almost infinite total, and thus he didn't buy it. This was not his first Chosen to protect. He had seen them come and go enough now that he could have written a book in the angelic language warning prospective Chosen guardians what to expect about their charges from the very beginning of the Journey of Regeneration. Completely forgetting oneself in battle was _not_ one of them.

"Let's rest now," he suggested without emotion, seeing that Colette had now finally collected her weapons. On open fields, one place was as good to rest as any other, and besides, the Chosen looked about ready to collapse at any moment.

He and Raine prepared a small spot in the grass in which to sit, and the professor set out a Holy Bottle so that its fumes would drive away monsters for the time being. Colette just simply sat herself on a large broken log, hanging her head as she took deep breaths.

Raine made another of those confused frowns, but she looked genuinely worried as well. "Are you alright, Colette?" she asked.

Colette quickly rose her head with the kind of smile one gives when they've been caught. "I'm just fine, Professor. Really I am," she insisted, but her words made her all the more suspicious. Her cheeks were red not just from embarrassment but exertion, and if Kratos was being as good of an observer as he thought himself as, he could swear that Colette wasn't just expending energy on fighting enemies. It was as if every word and action she made required a due process of consideration. But if she was caught off guard, like she was at that moment with Raine's question, she was driven into slight panic.

So, why was that? It irked him that he had no ready answer to supply to that.

"It would help you more if you relaxed," Raine politely suggested. "We can sit here for as long as you need, so take your time. This is your pilgrimage, after all."

What the half-elf was really referring to was trying to prevent any more mishaps in battle, something that wasn't lost on Colette. The girl half-heartedly nodded, and after a moment, turned away by adjusting herself on the base of the log.

Raine frowned right after, and sunk into silence as well, drawing out a bound-together book out of her traveling pack. She proceeded to open it, and after a few seconds started making notes in it with a feather pen. Over her shoulder, Kratos could make out the crude drawings of monsters they had previously encountered, with small notes of chicken-scratch beside them.

_How quaint_, he thought to himself. She was actually going to record all the happenings of their journey together, even the monsters they fought.

All Kratos had to amuse himself were his own thoughts, and a quick cleaning of his sword with an old rag he carried on his person. He drew the rag out and ran it down the sharp end of his blade in a slow motion, the process almost therapeutic for him after millions of times doing it. With a little bit of elbow grease, the remains of monster innards came straight off, allowing the blade to once again assume its usual shine in the light.

He stopped when he felt eyes glancing towards him. It was not his imagination; Colette was looking at him over her shoulder in an almost trance. Or rather, his sword.

"One has to clean their sword periodically in order to maintain their maximum proficiency in combat," he said, prompting the startled girl to shift her attention from his sword to his face. "Preferably after each battle."

"Y-yeah, I knew that...," she grimaced, turning away again.

Something was bothering her. But did it have anything to do with his sword, which she stared at almost... longingly? It was only because they had a long journey together from here on out that Kratos actually deemed himself worthy to care. But it was also because, from the first moment he had seen her descend the steps in her house that morning, he had noticed a subtle _difference_. The type that even normal humans might not ever have caught. But he had detected it because...

Her mana was changed.

Mana, like the very lifeforce of the entire planet, which made up the people and plants and all other functions and things of the world. Like a person's physical makeup defined a person, so did their mana. Know the person's mana characteristic, and you could find them in a crowded room. Kratos had lived over four thousand years now with the knowledge of how to read and understand a person's or thing's mana, so he could not be mistaken. The very underlying nature that made Colette 'Colette' had been altered in its most fundamental pattern.

What then did it mean? He could not say for sure, as he had never encountered a situation such as this in his entire lifetime. All he could do was what he had spent that entire morning doing: observing.

He saw her suddenly jump up from her seat on the log, straining to see something out beyond in the distance, from the direction they had already come from. When Kratos followed her focal point of interest with his sharper eyesight, he made out subtle activity around the area of Iselia Forest. A flock of birds taking flight into the air, startled by something. He could even hear an echo of their cries on the gentle wind.

"Colette?" Raine asked the girl. She had shut her makeshift book, but had yet to see what was wrong with her student.

The Chosen's voice slightly quivered. "The human ranch..."

Observant, Kratos reflected on her. But Colette's manner was marred by something more than mere interest in that revolting place.

"I guess you're right," Raine remarked, standing up and placing an arm over her eyes to look out in that direction. The half elf glanced back in Colette's direction, and looked slightly taken aback by the shadow that had suddenly descended upon the girl's face. "Is something the matter?" Raine half demanded.

"Nothing's going to happen to Iselia now that the Ch- I mean, I'm gone, right?"

Raine frowned. "Why should it? As far as I know, the non-aggression treaty still stands between the village and the human ranch."

"But they attacked the village yesterday!" Colette exclaimed. "They tried to kill... me..." She now looked uncomfortable, almost to the extreme. Her eyes darted left and right, as if she were instead an animal looking for a hole to hide in.

This seemed to make Raine speechless for a moment, as there was no real way to find an answer to that question that would both make sense and stop Colette's worries.

"So are you suggesting that we turn back, then?" Kratos asked, deciding it was his turn to mediate.

"That's what I've been saying since this morning...," Colette muttered under her breath. Raine would not have been able to hear it, but Kratos could, and he remained impassive despite his mind filing away the strange behavior for future thought.

The only one left sitting till then, Kratos stood up, sheathing back his sword. "Then what if your fears were realized, and the Desians had truly decided to attack Iselia in your absence? If you arrived to help them, the Chosen of Regeneration, then the Desians would have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to capture you and end your life right before your friends' and family's eyes."

Colette jerked, just as Kratos expected her to.

"We cannot offer our enemies such a fortunate chance to rid this world of its only salvation. You left Iselia this morning, ending those ties to start your journey as an angel. Is this not true?"

"N-no, I...," Colette hesitated, raising a hand to her face starting to turn pale.

Raine stayed silent, just as Kratos wanted her to. What could she have said anyway?

"It is time you made up your mind, if you haven't done so anyway. You are the Chosen. Your heart belongs to all of Sylvarent, not just Iselia now."

His words were harsh, and probably too much for a young woman to grasp who was clearly panicked, but Kratos, like it or not, had his own agenda. He had a heart in which to administer kindness and empathy, but only when it was called for. Otherwise, he was only too happy to stick to the same role that he had played in every since pilgrimage he had ever participated in: the cold and driving mercenary that escorted the Chosen to his or her destiny, making sure nothing interfered. That meant 'Desians', friends and family, the Chosen's own feelings...

Even though her mana was different, this was still Colette Brunel standing before him. She would play her role to the letter, even as he played his. She the Chosen, and he her guardian. And he would allow not a single change to affect that.

He thought she would have been cowed by now, and tell him in a shaking voice that she understood, that everything he had said was true. But instead she turned away, her back facing him. She gave him no answer. Even after a full minute, she hadn't said a single word as if to affirm whether she understood his words or not. It was another emergence of that strange behavior that made the 'Colette' of today different from the 'Colette' of yesterday. The 'Colette' that was probably going to make his job a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

"I'm sure everyone is alright, Colette," Raine spoke up with an understanding smile.

The Chosen turned towards Raine with a glimmer of hope.

Raine closed her eyes. "Lloyd will protect Iselia. That's about all he's good for, but at least he will have everything under control."

That prompted a rather interesting expression from Colette, one that even Kratos would not be able to decipher.

************

It was the quietest moment Colette had every spent traveling through the main path of Iselia Forest. Granted, her experiences in the forest on the bounds of the village she had been born and raised in were less than even Genis', and then when she did have to enter it, she was usually within someone else's escort. But she would still insist that there were usually a fair share of monsters to deal with when traveling down the main path of the forest.

The lack of monster activity was strange, and yet she was not complaining. Colette still hadn't thought ahead that far in how to handle one sword, let alone two. To her shame, she might as well not have known how to fight at all.

"Lloyd!"

Not to mention that if she thought she was awkward in her original body, waking up in a whole new one was not making things any easier. Having bigger feet and longer legs, not to mention a wider gait, automatically made mental adjustment extremely hard when compensating. She tended to trip over the littlest roots or cracks in the ground whenever she let herself wander too deep into thought, just as she had done right now.

"Woah, Lloyd, that was the sixth time already," Genis commented, standing next to her as she picked herself up.

"It was?" Colette chuckled uneasily. _Genis was keeping count...?_

(It was still too weird to chuckle instead of giggle like she usually did when these things happened...)

Genis nodded with a small smirk. "You're really slipping today, Lloyd."

"I don't mean to," she murmured. If she were instead in her real body, she and Genis would have shared a mutual laugh of ease after one of her usual klutz attacks. But she was _Lloyd_ now. Apparently Lloyd didn't off and on fall flat on his face.

At least they were within sight of the village by now. The forest ahead of them tapered off into the outlying plains, where beyond were the recognizable Iselia Village gates. Arriving there would make things just a little easier for Colette. But it wouldn't solve her current problem of being in a body that she couldn't even return to the original owner. Lloyd would not be waiting for her. He would already have been forced out of the village in the care of Raine and Kratos, as per the wishes she had given them yesterday.

"_I don't want to say goodbye to either Lloyd or Genis. That's why I want to leave Iselia before either of them finds out." _Those were the words she had spoken to her grandmother only yesterday after she had finished writing her personal letter of farewell to Lloyd.

All because of her pure selfishness for not wanting to face either Lloyd or Genis should they find out what the Journey of Regeneration really entailed was why they were in this mess now. It sounded like a merciful wish yesterday to Colette, though. In her heart she knew neither of her two friends should be burdened with the truth because it was hers alone to bear. They deserved to be at peace with themselves by eventually moving on from their past relationship with her.

And yet that reason was now her predicament. Lloyd was not able to stall leaving the village, and she was not able to arrive early enough before he was gone.

But even though Lloyd would not be there, she still had to go to the house where she had lived the majority of her life. Only because it was the sole comfort she could rely on at that moment.

"Come on, Genis," she told him, starting to break out into a run. She found that these new proportions made her faster, that it was easier to cross larger distances. This body of Lloyd's certainly had stronger physical characteristics than her own. If only she could somehow overcome her natural clumsiness, then she could utilize it better.

Near the village entrance were a few of the guards hired by the Mayor to help monitor Iselia's incoming and outcoming flows of traffic. (Which, of course, wasn't much at all.) One man looked on the verge of taking a nap against the gate's side while the other was fiddling with the strap of his weapon. But when Colette and Genis approached them, they both immediately snapped to attention.

"Lloyd, Phairdra was looking for you!" one of them told her.

"Grandmother...?"

Genis whipped his head towards her at the sound of her little slip. "Lloyd?"

"Colette's grandmother," she quickly covered. "This must have something to do with her leaving." _Me _leaving, she inwardly corrected herself.

They proceeded into almost the center of the village and stopped right in front of the door of her two-story house. Colette took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for now facing the members of her family as a totally different person. Her father and her grandmother, her precious loved ones that she thought she might never see again past that morning.

She didn't bother knocking, just pushed open the door and walked right inside. Genis shuffled in right after her. They walked into the large sitting room that joined into the kitchen and dining area, where Phaidra's and Frank's forms currently occupied two chairs at the dining table. Colette gulped, at once noticing the hidden grief on her father's and grandmother's faces. A stranger or someone who didn't know them well might not have been able to catch it, but Colette had known each of them her full sixteen years of her life. Even though they were trying hard not to acknowledge it, they both missed her.

She had a sudden longing to just rush forward and hug them both. But reason kept her rooted to the floor right beside Genis, settling for staring at them instead.

"Oh, hello, Lloyd," Phaidra greeted her, beginning to rise out of her chair with the help of her cane.

"The guards at the entrance told me to come see you," Colette said. It hurt not to be called her real name by the woman who had been the only maternal influence in her life.

"Colette is already gone, isn't she?" Genis burst out. "I brought Lloyd here, just as she wanted me to, but I guess she couldn't wait for us." His gaze turned downcast.

Phaidra nodded. "It was a journey that could not be prolonged any longer." She paused, turning her attention to procuring the same note that Colette had penned herself just last night. "Here." Phaidra placed the letter in Colette's gloved hands. "She left this letter behind for you."

Colette debated whether or not she should open the envelope or not, and react to it the way she was sure Lloyd would at being left behind by one of his best friends. She promptly decided against it. Instead, she handed the note down to Genis. "You can read it, Genis," she told him when he looked back at her with confusion.

"Are you sure?" the elf asked her, hearing the sadness in her voice.

She nodded. "I guess you can read it out loud to me, if you like."

Otherwise, she might have raised some suspicion from the people she considered her family and best friend. So Genis opened the envelope and unfolded the letter, and his still childish voice read off the words that she had meant for Lloyd to hear, not herself. Her concerns for involving him in the pilgrimage, her wishes for a happy future for him... Now none of that mattered anyway. His life would be in jeopardy now _because_ he was the Chosen, and his happy future could not be if the Regeneration of Sylvarant came to a successful conclusion.

Genis finally stopped reading. "It sounds like a will...," he hesitantly remarked.

Colette closed her eyes, as that was what she had intended the letter to be.

"Yes... you could call it that," Frank suddenly said, causing her to open her eyes again. Her father was on his feet, coming to stand behind her grandmother. The grief, she noticed, had intensified in the depths of his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Genis asked.

"Lloyd, Genis. There is something we hid from you and everyone in the village. Colette... no, the Chosen... is already-"

Colette moved to rush forward to stop the next words from leaving her father's mouth. "No! Don't tell him!-"

Both were interrupted by the sound of a large explosion coming from outside the house. Colette whipped around just at the same time Genis rushed to the open window looking out onto the unpaved village street. One second he was searching through the glass with raised eyebrows, the next his mouth had opened and his eyes were wide. "Oh no...," he moaned.

"What is it?" Colette urgently asked him.

Genis turned back to her and her family. "There's fire in the village!"

She and the elf immediately bounded outside, rushing out into the middle of the street to get a better look. And to Colette's dismay, there were indeed flames taking hold of the modestly-built, wooden homes of Iselia. Their former owners were spilling into the street with their children in tow, and there was a great deal of shouting going on between frantic husbands, hysterical mothers, and confused children.

Whips cracking against the dirt caused them all to scatter.

"Hey, look, survivors!" a gruff voice shouted, belonging to someone that Colette hoped never to see set foot into her beloved village. But it was not just one, but a whole force of them, spread out across the village with torches in one hand and whips in the other. _Desians_.

Why were Desians in the village?!

A group of three Desians were approaching them, obviously having caught sight of Colette's still-spared free of flames house. Colette could not move from her spot, and only barely half the reason was from preventing the Desians within feet of her house. She was also in slight shock as questions reeled inside her head. What had brought the Desians to Iselia? What reason did they have to invade if the Chosen had already departed?

"Hey! Get out of the way, brats!"

Colette snapped out of it just at the moment one of the Desians cracked his whip at her. She quickly jumped out of the way even before she was aware of her body's movement.

"Move!" another shouted at them. "I don't like killing kids, but I will if I have to!"

"Come on, Lloyd, let's fight them!" Genis yelled at her, already withdrawing his kendama.

All the color drained out of her face as she stared back at the elf. The two of them had no choice but to attack the Desians, if not to protect her loved ones than at least for self defense, but... Those swords strapped to her waist... She had yet to touch them...

"Lloyd!!" Genis shouted impatiently.

"Don't say I didn't warn ya, brat!" the same Desian began to charge at her, readying his whip to strike.

Almost as if she were in autopilot, Colette fumbled to withdraw at least _one_ of her swords. She barely had it out of its sheath before the Desian had practically knocked her off her feet. She landed hard in the dirt beneath her, right before the three threatening figures.

They started laughing at her. "He thinks he can play swordsman with us," one of them snickered, bending over her. "It's a lot different having a real foe over a training dummy, ain't it, kid?"

Her foot snapped out and kicked hard into his stomach before either of them could blink. The Desian let out a cry of pain as he staggered backward past his companions, having the breath knocked out of him.

"You're going to pay for that-!"

"Fire Ball!" Genis quickly shouted. Fire from his kendama quickly enveloped them in flames, burning at their bodies that were vulnerable to magic. There were more screams of pain before all three of them fell in a heap right at the edge of Colette's feet.

She quickly stood up and backed away from their bodies. Her hands trembled, as well as the sword clasped within one of them, tightly held onto like a lifeline. Yesterday she might have been able to help her two friends defeat the Desians that had invaded the Temple of Martel, but that was within her own body with her rings available to her. She considered herself a competent fighter in her own right, but she was not quite as physically apt as Lloyd was. Really, she had always been more of a support fighter. She hated being thrust into the front lines like this, especially when she didn't know what she was doing.

Genis walked to her side with a rather large frown, not a very welcome sign. "What the hell, Lloyd?!"

"I don't feel so well...," she mumbled. Besides the stress of fighting, she was also adjusting to Lloyd's sudden, physical instincts.

"Huh?"

"I'm okay, Genis," Colette quickly laughed, although it was horribly forced. "They just caught me off guard." Which was an _understatement_.

Her friend's agitation lessened a fraction. "Yeah, okay. Let's go finish off the rest of the Desians." But he still glanced back at her with worry before he took off running towards the center of the village.

Colette forced herself to follow, stomach churning.

************

There were several more battles to fight before Colette and Genis could make it to their intended destination. The Desians were rampant like a nest of angered ants, seeing fit to destroy all property in sight and harass the victims that fled in their wake. Colette did not like seeing the suffering, and even her heart, which was not easily tipped towards anger and retaliation, quivered at the actions of the Desians. These people that suffered at the hands of the half elves were those that had nurtured and attended to her as a child, had watched her grow over the years, had supported her uneasy fate as Chosen. No reason that the Iselia Human Ranch could devise would ever justify what her eyes witnessed in those moments.

She only wished she had more of the means to save them. In the case of her schoolhouse, untouched by the flames but still under threat, she and Genis could not help but stop and try to defend it. In this battle against the Desians, Colette still performed badly. Her movements with the sword, (as she still could not handle holding two), were sloppy. She just managed to defeat one Desian by constant batting of her blade before Genis had finished off the other two with his spells.

They made the rest of the way to the village square in silence. She being tense while Genis was frustrated. Frustrated at _her_.

Now the little elf couldn't have any confidence that he would be safely protected while powering up his spells in future battles. Lloyd and Genis had always worked so well together because of their differing personalities, and their separate strengths on the battlefield. It must have been hard for Genis now, in this trying moment of their lives, because she was not being the steadfast warrior that he had come to expect out of Lloyd in battles before.

In their strained silence, Colette and Genis finally set foot into the main, congregating area of Iselia. They were the last to arrive of a small group of their fellow villagers, men who could be spared to protect their families, and the remaining members of the Desians who were currently not destroying property at the moment.

It was strangely silent. Not a person, human or half elf, was saying a word. But all their eyes were shifting towards her.

One of the Desian soldiers, a higher rank than the others by the gold ornamentation attached to his helmet, stepped forward. His finger pointed right at the center of her chest.

"Lloyd Irving, come forth!"

Colette stopped midstride in confusion. Genis, too, braced to a stop beside her. But, unlike her, the color was draining from his face and his mouth was open.

"What's going on?" she asked out loud, it being obvious that both villagers and Desians alike were waiting for her to speak. "What do you want with..." She hesitated, almost saying Lloyd's name, but correcting herself. "...With me?"

The ranks of the Desians suddenly parted to let through a man that was different from his fellow half-elf companions. He was quite tall with light green hair, an impassive face, and the characteristic pointed ears of his mixed race. But, strangely enough, he also possessed a large, golden device attached to his left arm. Standing in front of his men, he locked eyes with Colette before they roamed over the other villagers.

"Listen up, you inferior beings! I am Forcystus, one of the Five Grand Cardinals," the stranger introduced himself in a condescending voice. "I am a superior half-elf who rules over the farm where we cultivate you pathetic humans. Lloyd, a human, has been found guilty of violating the non-aggression treaty. Therefore, I bring judgment upon you and this village."

The villagers around her began to back away from her right at the same time Colette found herself exclaiming, "What?!" It was a serious crime to break the non-aggression treaty between the village and the Desians, otherwise Iselia could and would suffer the same kind of treatment that the half-elves gave their own human slaves. All children were taught from a very young age never to set foot even a mile around the sight of the human ranch. Even Lloyd, who had not been raised in the village but outside it, knew to avoid it. So how could he...?

Genis stepped forward, glaring at the half elf named Forcystus. "You violated the treaty too! You tried to kill the Chosen!"

_Genis isn't denying that Lloyd _broke_ the treaty?!_ Colette thought in horror. It could only mean that her unabashed friend had seen fit to break those rules for reasons she still did not know, but was probably likely to find out very soon.

The Captain of the Desians sputtered from beside Forcystus. "Us, kill the Chosen?! Ridiculous!"

"But we saw you invading the temple yesterday!" Genis exclaimed.

_Yeah, one of those big Desians almost got the better of us, if not for Kratos' involvement,_ Colette reflected inwardly with a small shiver. It was one of the few times she had ever seen Lloyd being bested in battle before. Of course she had been scared then.

Before the Captain could rebuke Genis, Forcystus rapidly fixed his fellow half-elf with a warning glare instead, stopping the other from speaking. Then he turned his gaze back on them. "That is none of your concern. The only thing that matters is that you, Lloyd Irving, have been in contact with host body F192 and attacked our guards."

There was a collective gasp around her from the villagers. They didn't look very surprised, as Colette had always sadly known that those who lived in Iselia did not think much of her friend. Seconds passed before the surprise visible on their faces shifted raw anger instead. Instead of blaming the Desians for the destruction of their village, they could blame Lloyd instead.

"That can't be true!" she shouted. "Lloy-I understood what would happen if I did break the treaty. I would never wish for the destruction of this village, thus I would never do such a thing!" _Lloyd would never do such a thing, _she thought._ It has to be the Desians that are making all this stuff up._ Even though Genis was not calling out against the Desians' accusations, she still wanted to believe that this was some kind of ploy being waged by the half elves.

But no one seemed to believe her cries of innocence. The villagers still looked at her in anger, the Desians were laughing and shouting in her direction, and even Genis was looking back at her strangely. "There's no more use in hiding it anymore, Lloyd," Genis whispered in her direction with a sad shake of his head. "Everybody knows now."

"What have you done?!" the mayor was suddenly standing in front of her, shouting directly at her face. "How many times have we told you to stay away from the ranch?! Because of your careless actions, this whole village will be burned to the ground!"

Colette could hardly speak a word, as she had been struck dumb with the accusations coming from every single angle at her. Even though the source of the villagers' anger rested with Lloyd, it was still aimed directly at her, and she felt all their disappointment and frustration like sharp knives in her side. How could she blame them for the expressing of these feelings? Very soon Iselia might become smoldering ashes, and there was the chance that the Desians might take them away then to the human ranch nearby now that they no longer had homes or protection.

All because Lloyd had interacted with one of the human slaves from the ranch? But why would he even want to attempt such a thing?

Just a few feet away, Forcystus laughed. "We've prepared an appropriate opponent for your crime." He turned around and started making a beckoning motion with his hand towards some of the Desians at the rear of his command.

The Desians in between shuffled aside to reveal a large, green creature with elongated arms being held back with the use of a chain link around its neck. It looked nothing like a human or animal, and yet Colette had never seen a monster resembling it either. Borne in the center of its head was a red gem, resting where its eyes, nose, and mouth should have been instead.

Behind her, the remaining villagers stepped further back in fear. Only Genis remained at her back, although he too was trembling.

Forcystus continued to laugh. "It is time for your punishment."

The Desians released their holds on the monster's chains, allowing it to freely rush right towards where Colette stood with not even one of her swords withdrawn. It moved with a speed that she was not prepared for. With one of its massive arms, it aimed at her position, intending to club her down, but Lloyd's body's quick reflexes became her savior once again. She ducked underneath the blow right before she could be hit.

"Argh!"

Colette quickly opened her eyes, which she had closed at the moment the monster had been about to hit her, to see the Mayor be thrown to the ground with a crash.

"Mayor!" she shouted. The man looked to be unconscious with a bad bump to the back of his head.

"Look out, Lloyd!"

That was Genis who had shouted at her, and she barely scrambled out of reach of another blow aimed for her. She rushed back a few feet away from the monster, and quickly drew out one of Lloyd's swords, holding it out shakily before her. Sweat ran down the back of her neck and her face as she stared at the monster's large form amble forward to where she stood. The Desians were formidable opponents that she had struggled to defeat, but she wasn't ready for _this_. Not with her total lack of knowledge on how to use a sword. Even those quick reflexes she had obtained from her new body would not keep her safe for long.

Its arms rained down to try to crush her again. She didn't dodge this time; instead she tried to keep her feet from slipping in the dirt as she threw up her sword's blade to try to parry it. Then she tested out her strength to see if she could push it back. And found, surprisingly, that she could.

For a moment. Even Lloyd's strength, which was far more than her own, still had its limits. She found herself knocked off her feet and flying through the air before she could even blink.

Even though her mind panicked in those few seconds of flight, her body somehow knew what to do. She did hit the ground, but in such a way that most of the damage came to her side and not her back. Then she was back on her feet by sheer necessity because the monster was back to relentlessly trying to hit her.

She tried a different tactic. She slashed at it. Deep and steady breaths through her lungs as her arms pumped side to side with the sword's handle, trying to emulate the way she always noticed Lloyd fight in all their battles together. He was calm and collected in a fight, just as she had been with her own weapon. If she could only channel him but a little, even from her memories...

The monster roared out in pain when one of her slashes met its mark. She stepped back in surprise, amazed that she had actually managed to land a decent hit. But the small amount of triumph that flooded her did not last for long. Her opponent was far quicker to recover than she was.

Colette slowly backed away, raising the sword before her. She just needed to find an opening, then attack... It was definitely possible that she could defeat it. She just had to be patient. She just had to be...

"Ahh!"

That was until she suddenly tripped and fell flat on her back. The monster's shadow descended over her, and then all that confidence she had felt moments earlier evaporated.

"Aqua Edge!" Genis shouted his spell from the sidelines at just the right time, and then ran towards the writhing monster drenched by his water. "Lloyd, I'll help too!" he shouted at her. He swung the ball of his kendama at the monster despite the little physical threat he could pose to it.

"Genis...," Colette murmured.

The little elf led the monster away from Colette in an effort to help her have enough time to recollect her bearings. She was thankful for the kind gesture, but she did not have much time to enjoy it. Genis was not fast, and he was not strong. With such an enemy in such close proximity to him, there was no way he would have any chance to charge a spell.

In a split-second moment of decision, she stood up and rushed towards the monster's exposed back, the handle of one of Lloyd's swords in her hand. She struck it directly in the back and twisted the sword deeper into the monster's flesh. The exsphere on her hand briefly glowed as she unconsciously called on its strength, and she felt her enemy falter beneath it. It fell, and she with it.

"Lloyd!" That was Genis, rushing to her side.

"Lord Forcystus! Just as you thought, that boy has an exsphere!" That was another voice, belonging to one of the Desians.

"It must be the one from the Angelus Project that we've been searching for." Colette picked herself off the ground to find a different opponent, Forcystus, standing intimidatingly over her and Genis. He smirked down at them, and held out an open hand. "Give it to me!"

Colette looked from him, to the exposed exsphere still glowing on her hand. Or rather, Lloyd's hand. His most prized possession, a memento of his mother that he kept closely guarded and secret, and had only showed to her and Genis because of his strong trust in them. If Lloyd were in her place, he most certainly would have refused Forcystus. She would do the same then.

"You can't have it," she glared back at the Desian leader, and immediately covered the exsphere protectively with her other hand.

"Then I'll just have to force it from you," Forcystus snapped, suddenly picking her up by the cuff of her shirt with one hand. The strength of the Desian momentarily stunned her so much that Forcystus was able to yank her exsphere-bearing hand up with his free one, and hold it towards his underling Desian. "Remove it!" he ordered.

"No!!" She struggled, but it was no use. Forcystus had a tight grip on her. Even Genis had been restrained by two of the Desian henchmen and was being dragged away from her.

Suddenly, Forcystus' eyes dilated, and his face took on an instant look of pain. He lost all strength in his arm, and dropped her back to the ground. For around his neck were the two elongated green arms of the monster Colette had just barely been able to defeat. The monster was trying to restrain its master.

She suddenly heard an old woman's voice waver briefly in her mind. "Run...away...Genis, Lloyd..."

"Lord Forcystus!!" Some of the Desians were already racing towards their leader in an attempt to free him from their own monster's clutches. In the ensuing chaos, Genis was able to make his way to her side as she stood up on shaky feet.

"I just heard... someone's voice call out to me...," she hesitantly told her friend.

Genis nodded. "Me too. It sounded like..." His eyes widened, and his head whipped towards the direction of the monster. "Marble?!"

_The one from the human ranch that Lloyd broke the law to visit?_ Colette remembered. _But why would her voice be coming from the same monster that tried to kill both me and Genis...?_

The voice came back in her mind again just as a small swarm of Desians attempted to break the monster's hold off their leader. "Uh...ugh...guh. Get away...hurry!" The monster suddenly dropped down to the ground, releasing Forcystus. "Genis...you were like a grandson to me. Thank you." It raised its monstrous head to look back at Colette and Genis. "Goodbye..."

And then it blew apart in an explosion. The force was enough to send several Desians flying, and even Forcystus had been caught in the blast. He rolled several feet back, and grunted in pain.

"...No! Protect Lord Forcystus!" one of the remaining Desian soldiers, who was still standing with others around the villagers, shouted. He and his comrades ran towards their wounded leader, freeing the villagers in the process. They gathered around Forcystus' form, and the captain instructed two of them to hoist the half elf onto their shoulders.

With Forcystus off the ground, Colette could see that her adversary was coated in bruises and cuts resulting from the monster's self destruct. His eyes immediately locked with hers. "...Lloyd. We will always come after you as long as you possess that exsphere. Always!"

Then he was led away, the other Desians following after him. Soon they were gone completely from the village, though the effects of their presence still lingered. There was still the smell of heavy smoke in the air, and the ground they had trampled was covered in ash and soot. Just seeing the real destruction that had overtaken her village, and glancing at the angered faces of her fellow villagers, made a heaviness descend down on Colette. The Desians were gone, but it was only the start of her troubles, she feared.

"M...Marble! ...Marble! No!!"

Her friend Genis was crouched down in the dirt, huddled over the red exsphere that had served as the creature's eye, and had been blown away by the ensuing blast. There were tears dripping down across his cheeks, and he looked so lost and afraid.

Colette too fell down on her hands and knees and began to cry.

****************

*Do point out if there were mistakes, or discrepancies with the story compared to the original plot. Sometimes I automatically assume stuff, especially related to Kratos. But I also like to get a little more creative with scenes beyond copy and paste dialogue and script. Next chapter will wrap up Colette and Genis leaving Iselia, and also include more Lloyd and Kratos interaction. Do review if you liked!*


	4. Banished

_*****_Alright, I got this chapter out right before I have to go back to school. Yah, me. I hope everyone enjoys it, as it was considerably easier to write than last chapter. Basically I wrapped up Iselia and threw in a extra scene with Lloyd and Kratos, because I love writing that type of stuff. Hopefully all the exciting stuff happens next chapter.*

_**Switched Circumstances**_

**Chapter 4: Banished**

Her cheek stung as if it were alit with some inner fire. The sensitive skin of her cheeks tingled underneath the slight heat emitted by tears fresh from tear ducts. Her body ached in areas where bruises were already forming, the cause the constant beatings she had undergone from both monster and Desian. Even the fingers nestled under her red gloves felt as if they were developing small blisters due the death-tight grip she had kept on the sword she had wielded earlier on. All these pains could not compare to that being waged on her emotions.

The Mayor of Iselia had just slapped her. Forced her off the ground, choked her on her tears, took her by the point of her chin with one hand and used his other to inflict upon her. The force of the blow made her head spin. She almost fell back into the dirt. Almost. She instead touched the sore spot gingerly in surprise.

"What have you done?!" the mayor's voice rumbled over her like the arrival of thunder after the lightning had struck. He slammed her forward towards the still blazing fires of the village. "Look! Look what happened to our village! It's all your fault!!"

Past the equally angry faces of the other villagers gathered around her, Colette took in the now current state of Iselia. Many of the homes and businesses would be ash in but a few hours, and with the village's limited amount of manpower, no amount of water they produced would save their buildings. Maybe a few, but not the entire village. A few of the fields too, responsible for crops, were also ablaze. Iselia to her eyes had just suffered a tragic blow, and whether she liked it or not, she was thereby saddled with the blame for it, even if she hadn't inflicted it herself.

Some small voice in the back of her mind cried out that it really was _Lloyd's_ responsibility. It was not her fault that she simply found herself there at the wrong place at the wrong time, wearing his body instead of her own. She might be instead traveling with Kratos and Raine far away, not even knowing about the state of the village because news traveled slow in their underdeveloped world. Then she berated herself for such thoughts. She was no better than the villagers if she decided to focus her blame on another person as well, because when she considered it, Lloyd's cause was justified. He had merely offered a hand to a fellow human being when others wouldn't. That human being in the end had sung her gratitude for Lloyd and Genis before dying. She would be the only one to do so before the day was over.

"I'm sorry," she rasped in a weak voice before the mayor. And she truly was. She never wanted such a thing to happen to the village of her birth. She had become Chosen specifically to save their lives as well as all the others of Sylvarant. It broke her heart to have failed them like this even in circumstances she had no control over.

The Mayor's face still stayed as stormy as before. "You think you can fix this by apologizing?! The Desians marked you as their enemy! As long as you are here, this village will never be at peace. Do you understand?!"

Colette thought she did, and yet she didn't. Shock was still rattling her system enough that comprehension still floated like mist above her brown cow-tipped head. Forcystus had openly challenged her before leaving the village in the company of his men. Was that what the Mayor was referring to? Because of Lloyd's precious Exsphere attached to her hand, she was wanted by the Desians?

Genis' small body pushed in front of her, separating her from the Mayor's wrathful shadow. "Wait a minute!" he shouted. "You're going to exile him?!"

Inwardly, Colette jerked at the word 'exile'. Lloyd's body or not, she never thought to ever hear the word.

The Mayor nodded his head. "Yes." Sending a chill up Colette's spine as her face began to drain of color. She took a few steps back, not wanting to believe what she was hearing. But the Mayor wasn't the only one carrying out the sentence against her. The others villagers gathered there around the square were also making silent nods of consent. Even Phaidra and Frank, her own grandmother and father respectfully, were watching her with cautious eyes.

"That's not fair!" Genis yelled. "Lloyd didn't do anything wrong! He just saved Marble..." His voice trailed off at the mention of the old woman's name.

"Any involvement with the ranch is forbidden. There are no exceptions."

Genis' eyes narrowed, her only support in the otherwise unrelenting opposition to her remaining there. "So it's okay to let people die at the human ranch as long as the village is safe?!"

The Mayor's answer stung Colette's ears as much as she being found banished. "Yes." There was no hesitation in his voice when he said it; it was the awful truth she found radiating in his eyes. "Had you not done something so stupid, they'd have been the only ones that died."

Some of the villagers around them nodded or made sounds of agreement. "The people at the ranch were just going to rot there anyway," one female retorted with brows furrowed. Colette remembered her fondly as the mother of some of the schoolchildren, as well as a kind woman who always greeted her with a kind smile whenever they passed each other by. That happy memory shattered instantly at the sound of her selfish and cruel words.

When Colette finally found her voice, it immediately shouted, "How can you say such a thing?!" It's intensity surprised her; from Lloyd's deeper timber, it was certainly more forceful and strong.

All attention whipped towards her.

"They're human beings, just like we are!" she continued, clenching her fists before her. "They too had families and friends that they left behind, and only by Martel's divine grace have we not met their same fate! I'm sorry for the destruction of Iselia. I'll accept any punishment you give me, but please don't put down those poor people like that anymore!"

There were some in the small crowd that looked knocked back by her words. But too many still were unfazed and unresponsive. Only Genis wiped at his eyes, his lip quivering. He looked thankful for her words at least in the defense of those that had no position to stand up for themselves.

"Very well then," the Mayor said stonily. "You will leave this village immediately."

Another woman stepped forward, another familiar face to Colette. "Mayor, surely you don't have to be so strict on a child..."

"What are you saying?!" a man blasted from behind the woman. "Do you realize how many people died here," he raised his finger at Colette, "Because of him?!"

"It's not Lloyd's fault!" Genis spoke up again. This time his face was going red like a newly plucked apple. "I'm the one that took him to the ranch." Colette sucked in a breath, as well as most of the other villagers. Everyone was just as mesmerized with Genis as they were with Colette. He was the younger brother of Raine, whom all the villagers were indebted to for teaching their children, and he had been placed in their care for the exchange of sending Raine off as one of Colette's guardians. He may have been one of the only elves in the entire village, but the elvish blood was well respected in lue of its fame for intelligence and granting of magic. "So it's my fault!"

The Mayor frowned at the sudden revelation. Now he looked troubled, as well as other members of the village. "But it's Lloyd the Desians are after," he tried to reason with Genis. "And besides, Lloyd isn't from this village to begin with," he bit back with just a hint of prejudice. "He's an outsider, raised by a dwarf."

Colette opened her mouth to speak in defense of her friend, even if that would surely of meant giving away that she was in the wrong body. By then, she figured things didn't matter too much. Lloyd meant too much to her as a person, as a dear friend. She would not let him be berated like this, same as with the slaves of the human ranch the villagers also blasted.

"Then I'm leaving too!" Genis announced before Colette could speak. "I'm just as guilty as he is!"

"You don't have to do this, Genis," Colette said behind him, now concerned that he would be thrown out of the village with her by his volition. "I'll be fine by my own. You need to stay here and wait for your sister to return back from the pilgrimage."

Genis looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "You can't be serious, Lloyd?!" he exclaimed. "We both broke the laws to help Marble. I'm just as guilty for all this as you are!" He waved a hand across the entire scope of the smoldering village.

"But Genis, you can still have a life here without me." Colette tried to smile, although it didn't nearly reach as high as it could go. "Don't you want that?"

The elf forcefully shook his head. "What life is there when both my best friends and older sister are gone!" he shouted, surprising her. "I don't want to live with these selfish humans any longer! Not after what they said about Marble! Not after what they said about you!"

It was then that Colette knew she could not persuade Genis to remain any longer. She wanted him to stay, only because she had originally intended both him and Lloyd to lead peaceful and happy lives while she underwent her pilgrimage. But what was there for her to do? Lloyd had ended up on the pilgrimage anyway in her own body, so now what else could she do to make sure Genis followed her original wishes as well? Martel obviously was working against her favor., and she knew there was no way she could interfere with the goddess' wishes.

"Alright," she finally relented. "We'll leave together."

"Fine then," the Mayor interrupted, till then forced to silence in the wake of Genis' decision. He didn't look all that hesitant anymore in banishing Genis either. "By the rights vested in me as mayor, I hereby announce the banishment of Lloyd and Genis from the village of Iselia!" His voice roared over Colette's sadness, Genis' anger, the villagers' agreement and call for justice. "Now get out!"

He was the first to turn his back on Colette and walk away. Many of the other villagers followed his example. Soon it was only Colette and Genis standing in the center of the dirt circle, with Phaidra and Frank hanging back as their only company.

Colette turned away from them, covering her eyes with her hand and clenching them tightly, if only to stop herself from crying all over again. She feared what they would say, especially since they only knew her as the single source of destruction of the village and not a member of their own flesh and blood. The Mayor and the other villagers could curse her and Lloyd's name in her hearing all they wanted. It would be easier to bear than her own grandmother and father doing it instead.

"It is still not too late to catch up to the Chosen," Phaidra gently suggested, surprising Colette. "You both can still do some good by guarding and protecting her. If in doing so, the world is saved, surely everyone will change their minds about you."

"Grandmother," Colette whispered underneath her breath as she turned back around. Hope returned to her heart once more, just knowing her grandmother still believed in her, even if she was Lloyd to her.

"For I'm sure Colette would want that as well," her father added.

Colette could not help herself; she abandoned all rational thought and threw her arms around the small frame of her feeble grandmother. Phaidra's eyes blinked in surprise at the foreign action, but Colette did not care. She could not leave Iselia, not even in another's form, without giving a heartfelt farewell to her most cherished loved one first.

"Thank you," Colette said. Then she broke away, though she would have rather stayed embracing her grandmother for hours still. Her rational thought had finally caught up with her, and was telling her it was time to start acting like Lloyd Irving again.

"We wish you both a safe journey," Phaidra told both her and Genis. "I wish there were other ways we could support you, but we gave all our extra provisions to Colette before she left."

Colette shook her head. "We'll be fine."

Genis nodded in agreement. "Yeah." He faced her. "Now come on, Lloyd, let's catch up with them!"

At the edge of the village, near the gates on the outside, Noishe waited patiently for them. Colette found herself surprised, as she had forgotten all about Lloyd's strange dog during the morning's previous events. She moved to pat its head in greeting, although the animal stepped away from her before she could touch it.

It did drop something though right in front of her feet. She bent down to pick it up, finding Lloyd's name emblazoned on the front.

"Woah, where did he get the letter?" Genis wondered for her. His eyes widened in understanding as he looked at something behind her. "Oh, your pack is open. It must have been like that since we left the forest."

Colette patted the small pouch attached to her belt and found it to be so. Then she turned her attention back to the sealed envelope, running a finger underneath its lid to open it. She withdrew the handwritten note slowly.

Genis tried to peer over her raised arms, asking, "Who's it from, Lloyd?"

In embarrassment, Colette found she could not recognize the letter's writer from its mere handwriting. The letters were big and blocky, so she assumed the author had blocky fingers and not much skill for eloquence. Only when her eyes scrolled to the very bottom could she make out the name at the bottom. "Dirk," she read off.

_Dear Lloyd, Did you read the Traveler's Guide? It has the seven most well-known Dwarven Vows as well as knowledge necessary for your journey written in it. Make use of this information and be sure to protect Colette. 14 years have passed since I found you and started raising you. You were still barely able to walk. I_

_remember how you were scared of me and always crying. And now, you've grown into a strong swordsman. I'm grateful for you calling me, a non-human, your father. Someday, when you are a full-grown man, I'll have a gift for you. Keep that in mind as something to look forward to as you go out there and fight._

After quickly glancing over the words, Colette closed the letter and refolded it. The words contained within it were not really intended for her to read, but rather for Lloyd, who would far more appreciate the praise from his own father. All she could do was serve as its retainer, same as with the Exsphere attached to her hand. After slipping the letter back into its envelope, she placed it into her pack. Right next to the nestled necklace Lloyd had made her that she could not wear yet until she gained her own body back.

After receiving some last goodbyes from Phaidra and Frank, Colette finally departed from the village of her birth, hours behind schedule. Her only guardian was Genis. Her only mission was to find Lloyd. And her future was not as clear as the one she had imagined only last night before falling asleep encased in her true body.

_**********_

When Lloyd stepped foot into the desert town of Triet, the first main human center of activity he had ever seen outside of Iselia, he immediately felt like getting down on his knees and kissing the sand underneath him in gratitude. It was a hard trek maneuvering through the sands of the outlying desert after he and his guardians had left behind them the plains. The sand made his steps slower, and the heat bore down on him unrelentlessly. Sweat had poured down the skin of his unfamiliar body. And his long hair was tussled from the breezes that kicked the sand up in his eyes and mouth.

He liked Colette for all the world as his dear friend, but he sure wasn't getting as used to her body as quickly as he would have hoped. It certainly had many drawbacks and limitations. Just like when he received his first swords, which were entirely composed of wood to his immediate disappointment. But his father Dirk had shook his head when he asked for real ones; 'You have to develop skill for these ones first,' the dwarf had told him then without much pity.

Colette's body was as unrefined and underdeveloped as those wooden swords he first owned. He could not dismiss the fact though that it held potential. Alas, not currently in strength. He was stuck as a girl, and would have to get used to it out of pure circumstance. But his new form was quicker on its feet, only when he could remember that his proportions were smaller. Yet it was not used to much exertion. Hence why he was panting and at a loss for breath by the time they had reached Triet.

Raine had pointed out Lloyd's low stamina to Kratos in the midst of the trek through the desert. Lloyd would have spoken about it himself, but he knew the real Colette would never had called attention to herself for such a reason. It always exasperated him back at the village, as he wished she were quicker to express her true feelings than simply hide them underneath a smile.

Kratos had paused for a moment on top of the sand dune they had been climbing over, looking back at Lloyd. Then he had simply shook his head. "We have to make Triet before it gets dark. Preferably before the time of our next meal. The desert is no place to rest, especially if you want to avoid the bandits."

_'To hell with the bandits_,' Lloyd thought with a grimace. He was the Chosen here; didn't he have the right to tell his guardians when to stop and when to go?

But Kratos didn't even pause to listen to any complaints. He just simply resumed walking before them, leading them as if he really did know where they were going.

So, yes, Lloyd was happy to finally have arrived in Triet. And true to Kratos' word, they were there long before dark. The town was still in the throws of bustling activity, with stalls at the west end displaying various wares produced by turbaned men and women. One burly man was tending a booth laden with weapons. The familiar gleam of a duo of twin swords made Lloyd's heart skip a beat. Those swords... he had to have them. Even if this body was not well suited to wielding them, he still trusted his ability with swordsplay better than tossing two rings at a distance in a battle.

"Maybe we should split up," Raine suggested, taking the words right out of Lloyd's mouth. She glanced at the same stalls Lloyd's attention was focused on. "We will need more supplies for the journey, especially items that would have been difficult to acquire back in Iselia."

"That's an excellent suggestion, Professor," Lloyd praised her, glad she was thinking on his same wavelength for once. "I would like to explore myself."

Raine smiled understandingly. (Her manner was a lot better improved around Colette, Lloyd had noticed since the journey's beginning. She actually seemed to outwardly care about him, not quick to nag him like she would have done if he were standing before her in his own body. There weren't even any surprise pop quizzes along the way to keep him on his toes. Being Colette had to have its perks, right?)

"Then we should meet back here in an hour?" Raine asked both Lloyd and Kratos.

Lloyd instantly nodded. Even Kratos said after a few moments, "That is acceptable."

The professor was instantly gone with Kratos' approval. Lloyd exhaled a deep breath; he felt just a bit freer now that there was one less set of eyes to watch him. As for the other set, he hoped Kratos would take that as his cue also to walk off and find something worthy of the attention of a brooding swordsman.

But Kratos did not budge an inch from his still stance behind Lloyd. "Hey, aren't you going to head off too?" Lloyd asked him hesitantly.

"That would not be appropriate," Kratos answered civilly, crossing his arms. "You are the Chosen of Regeneration. I was paid by the people of Iselia and the Church of Martel not to keep my eyes off of you. That is the duty of a guardian."

"But no one's going to try to harm me here. There aren't even any Desians around," Lloyd defended.

"It doesn't matter. I will not let you leave unattended."

Lloyd quickly turned around so the mercenary could not see the signs of agitation working their way on to his face. The truth was that Lloyd was anything else but comfortable in the older man's presence. Just the several hours that had already passed in the pilgrimage, he had felt Kratos' eyes always on him, observing him without fail. He couldn't even remotely act like himself because of Kratos' scrutinizing gaze.

"Fine. Whatever," Lloyd mumbled in defeat. This meant his plans to see the weapons vendor were practically void. He was now reduced to the task of innocent sight-seeing. Inwardly, his mind was shouting, '_How am I going to get rid of this guy?!' _There had to be some way he could lose Kratos within the folds of an unfamiliar town such as Triet. Unfortunately only unfamiliar to Lloyd, but with that in mind, maybe he could find himself **unintentionally** lost?

It was time to change gears. He tried summoning his best 'Colette' smile, hoping he was portraying it just like he remembered it. "I've never been to Triet before. I'd like to look around for a while."

Kratos blinked. Lloyd inwardly flinched; did the mercenary sense a trap? But Kratos didn't ask for an explanation. He just merely flipped his large hand out before him, silently saying, 'Lead the way, then.'

To lose Kratos, Lloyd would have to find an area flooded with a good amount of people. But the main area of Triet, the marketplace, had not generated the type of crowd that was suitable. So he would have to try another place then. There was a dirt path that extended past the two-story hotel, so Lloyd crossed his fingers and took off to see what lay beyond it...

Only to find an area less occupied than the first. There were hardly any standing structures built around the small oasis that allowed Triet to exist, and whatever people were wandering around were dispersed from each other. Lloyd saw that his options for escape were practically nill.

"Is this what you wanted to see?" Kratos asked from behind with just a hint of sarcasm.

"Um, not just this...," Lloyd stammered, looking back and forth for something else to present itself.

A lady's shout came from behind him. "Get your fortunes read here! Find out the hidden secrets to your future, the mysteries to your past!" There was a small tent set next to the oasis on the far side, where a local was outside advertising.

"I'm going to get my fortune read," Lloyd immediately decided, already taking off for the tent.

"Chosen...?"

Lloyd quickly rushed into the tent and drew the flap of the entrance shut just before Kratos could come in with him. For a few moments, Kratos' tall form lingered close to the tent, as evidenced by his shadow seen from inside, but then he departed to wait somewhere else. Lloyd breathed a sigh of relief when Kratos had done so.

"Can I help you?"

Lloyd turned around to see another local behind a table topped with a crystal ball, blinking at him confusedly. But what was more important was the appearance of another exit out of the tent just behind the woman. He guessed it lead out to behind the oasis, where he might be able to slip out undetected by hiding behind the palm trees clustered around the small body of water.

Out of the bag of gald Phaidra had given him, Lloyd withdrew several coins. "I would like my fortune read," he said, placing the gald in the open hand of the turbaned woman.

"Ah, yes," the woman replied, taking the payment. "What kind of fortune? A love fortune perhaps, to find out if your crush likes you or not?"

Lloyd grimaced. "A normal one, please."

With a nod, the woman closed her eyes and began to roam her hands around the surface of the crystal ball. She hummed and made sound effects, all part of the illusion of actually divining something. He only remained standing there just to make sure the woman became absorbed enough in her performance not to notice him slip out. And when he was satisfied with that, he hurriedly crept past her and silently lifted the flap leading out behind the tent into the bright sunlight.

************

For the past ten minutes since Lloyd had escaped the Fortuneteller's Tent, there had been no sign of Kratos. No hint of the tall mercenary's shadow, no sensation of the man breathing down Lloyd's newly sensitive neck. Lloyd felt as if he had never been so intensely held under scrutiny until his path had crossed with Kratos. Even when he had had his real body back when the Desians had attacked the Temple of Martel, he still suspected the mercenary to be watching his every move. But now that he was 'Colette', the feeling had intensified.

Suffice to say, he could breath again without being monitored. And he was so far enjoying his now eleven minutes of newfound freedom wandering amongst the stalls of the Triet marketplace.

It wasn't a big place, nor were there a lot of stalls, but considering Lloyd had never been anywhere else than probably the smallest village in Sylvarant, Iselia, anything could have amazed him. The diversity of smells and sounds stimulated him: the clank of metal as a blacksmith customized a new sword from an otherwise weaker counterpart, a boy shouting his wares of apple gummis and antidotes, desert pasta being cooked in a dusty pan prepared with tomato sauce that had first originated in Iselia. Lloyd found himself immersed in the activity of the marketplace, but at the same time, he never wavered from his original quest.

The two swords on display outside the stall were of even better and stronger make than the ones he had left behind in Iselia. Their silver blades gleamed brightly in the desert sunlight, tantalizing him as much as one look at their sharp edges. He approached them with the temptation of picking at least one up and examining it to his liking.

"Hello, young lady."

Lloyd looked up to find the burly owner of the weapons stall looking curiously down at him. "Hey," Lloyd greeted back, although he didn't like particularly being called 'young lady' very much, even if that was what he currently looked like.

"Are you looking for a new weapon?" the man asked.

"Yes." Lloyd stepped closer to the twin swords on display, hoping that the vendor would get the hint on what particular weapon he was searching for.

The man made a calculating position, his eyes roaming to the two rings that Lloyd had since had to strap to the back of his dress for easy access. "Ah, so you're a chakram user. We have plenty of fine weapons of that source in stock. Let me go fetch you some."

"That's not what I want!" Lloyd objected. He immediately thrust his hands at the twin swords. "How much are these?"

Raising an eyebrow, the vendor looked for a moment at if Lloyd had sprouted some kind of a joke. Then he brightened. "Oh, you want to try out a new weapon?" His eyes this time roved to Lloyd's now skinny arms hidden underneath his long white sleeves. With a shake of his head, the man told Lloyd, "I don't think these particular swords here would serve you much good. But I do have some slender swords in the back with feather-like weight. Perfect for beginners."

"I'm not a beginner!

Now the sword vendor looked vexed, and scratched the bottom of his chin which was covered by a scruffy, small beard. "Girl, why are you learning how to use a sword?"

"I already know how to use one!" Lloyd growled.

By now, a small crowd of curious onlookers were gathered behind Lloyd, drawn in by the loud voices. There were already voices engaged in hushed whispers, commenting on the scene whether they knew the full extent of the situation or not.

"What in Martel is that girl thinking? She doesn't look like she can lift a sword, let alone wield two."

"How many female swordsmen do you see around here anyway?"

Lloyd began to turn red as the voices behind him began to drive him towards anger. Of course he didn't look serious as a fighter, being in Colette's body, but he still felt it gave them no right to insult him like that. He whirled around, intending to say something, anything, to make them shut up and mind their own business.

A shadow descended over him as a familiar figure stepped right in front of him.

"Do you dare to insult the Chosen?" Kratos asked the crowd coldly. Lloyd could not see the magic swordsman's face, but he guessed Kratos' expression was enough to frighten any sensible person.

"Chosen?!" one of the crowd members exclaimed in surprise.

Kratos stepped aside so that everyone around him and Lloyd could see clearly the Cruxis crystal fastened around Lloyd's neck, glistening in the overhead desert sun. It was enough to generate quite a few gasps. Then, as if they had been struck by one of Genis' lightning spells, the crowd began bowing before him.

"I am so sorry, Chosen. I didn't know."

"It is an honor to have you here in Triet, Chosen."

"Please enjoy your stay here to your heart's content."

_I think I preferred their insults instead,_ Lloyd thought, taking a hesitant step back. He had seen Colette receive this treatment before, back in Iselia even though the villagers there had practically watched her grow up from birth. Just because she had been born of Mana lineage, and then blessed with this strange crystal resonating through her body, seemed to make her much more important than any other person of Sylvarant. But, of course, she was supposed to be able to save the world. No wonder everyone was willing to worship her, and him in her place.

He still wasn't very comfortable with it though.

"Please go back to your business," Kratos ordered the awestruck crowd around them. "There will be time to meet with the Chosen later."

_'Later?!'_ Lloyd frowned, not in the least anticipating this '_later_'. But the townsfolk did obey Kratos willingly, walking off and giving him and the magic swordsman a wide enough berth of private space. Lloyd was able to take a nice, deep breath.

"What were you doing, Chosen?" Kratos suddenly rounded on him, his arms crossed and his tone serious. "I was under the impression that you were having your fortune read."

"Yeah, about that... It turned out to be nothing of value. I guess that lady wasn't even a real fortuneteller after all," he tried to laugh it off as innocently as he could. In the back of his mind, however, Lloyd was wondering how long it had taken for Kratos to realize he had escaped. The mercenary had probably burst right into the fortuneteller's tent while the lady was still humming over that crystal ball with no audience to watch her, and then scared her out of her wits by demanding to know where the 'Chosen' had disappeared to. Lloyd almost snickered out loud at the thought. Maybe he should have hung around the tent longer to actually see such a scene take place.

"You left the tent via the back entrance and left the area without a proper escort. What you did was thoughtless and dangerous."

Lloyd narrowed his eyes at Kratos. "I did nothing wrong. I just wanted a moment to myself without someone hovering over my shoulder," he defended himself.

"That doesn't matter. You are the Chosen, and I am your guardian. To keep you safe from the Desians, and any other threat, I or Raine must accompany you wherever you go." Kratos frowned. "Surely you understand just how important your life is to the whole of Sylvarant?"

Turning away, Lloyd gritted his teeth together in half a snarl. "I-I know that!" His anger started to dissipate, as he realized that he could not fault Kratos for being so critical of something like this. For all he knew, Raine would be the same way, and then he would not have even attempted to cross her wrath. "It's just so hard...," he muttered.

"Hard to what?"

Lloyd shook his head. "To be Chosen. I just never realized..." He was amazed that Colette could have handled the role so well all her life. Save for being a klutz and apologizing too much, she really was the perfect candidate for world savior.

A hand touched his shoulder. Lloyd looked up to see Kratos giving him some small measure of encouragement just by gripping his shoulder like that. "You will learn to cope with it," Kratos told him seriously, his eyes closed. "This is only the start of your journey. Mistakes are to be expected, but shouldn't ever be repeated."

"Yeah..." Lloyd found himself slightly smiling. Somehow, he knew the man couldn't be angry at him for long.

"Now what was it you were looking for?"

It was then that Lloyd remembered why he was in the marketplace in the first place, and turned back to the weapons vendor. The man, who had once regarded Lloyd as if he were some idiot, was suddenly offering up the same swords that had caught Lloyd's eye in the first place. His head was bowed too in submission, whether to Lloyd or Kratos it was uncertain.

Kratos looked from the swords to Lloyd. "These are what you wanted?" he asked seriously.

Lloyd was not so sure now that he could say 'yes', especially with the mercenary looking down at him shrewdly. It was even worse than the villagers or the vendor themselves judging his swordsmanship based on his current appearance. Mainly because Kratos knew how Lloyd fought with the twin swords, having been involved in battle together back at the Temple of Martel. And he was familiar with Colette's fighting style as well. This situation would surely then tip Kratos to the fact that this Chosen was not the one he was supposed to be guarding.

Finally, he just had to ask himself just how badly the swords meant to him.

"Yeah, I want those," he answered, both to himself and out loud to Kratos.

Kratos' eyes narrowed just a small fraction. "Why?"

_'Because I don't want to be stuck wielding chakrams for the rest of my life, damn it!'_ Lloyd thought in the back of his mind, though outside he fought hard to keep himself from angrily twitching. Kratos was a foe the likes that Lloyd had never faced before, and in such unusual of circumstances. If it wasn't for being 'Colette' instead, there would have been no question and answer session. For if Lloyd gave any kind of explanation, be it truth or lies, there would be questions. Lots of them. And not necessarily just from Kratos.

Raine would have a list for him as well.

Though it was risky, he decided to keep plowing forward. Those swords were just within reach. He could already feel them gripped in the palms of his hands...

"Because I want to experience all kinds of new things during this pilgrimage," he said, settling for a happy medium between truth and lies instead of one of the two extremes. "I thought using swords in battle would be interesting, just like how my friend does." He couldn't bring himself to say his own name afterwards. "Sort of like a memento of our friendship," he then added.

The last comment he had only added because he thought it sounded very 'Colette.'

He waited for the next onslaught of questions that were sure to follow. But a full minute passed, and Kratos had not spoken one word back to him. Instead, the mercenary looked strangely thoughtful.

"Alright then."

At the sound of Kratos' voice, Lloyd had been already on the defensive to retort, until he fully realized what Kratos had told them. There was no suspicion, no questions, in that tone. Lloyd quickly opened his eyes to look back at the man, having closed them beforehand in preparation for the anger he would have been able to deliver. But now...

"Did you just say...?"

"Don't make me repeat myself," Kratos interrupted, slightly turning away. "Although, I think something more suitable should be purchased for a beginner."

Lloyd was immediately back on the defensive again. "What?!"

Kratos turned fully towards the sword vendor, ignoring Lloyd's reddening face. "We will take a set of your wooden swords instead," the mercenary instructed, pointing towards the back of the stall where the swords not on display were kept.

"Right away, sir!" the vendor said, already rushing backwards to retrieve them.

"If you want to learn a new fighting style, then you must start from the very beginning. It is only after lots of practice and hard work that you can hope to wield a sword such as that one," Kratos told Lloyd behind him, indicating Lloyd's earlier pick.

"But I can already...!"

Kratos turned his head to look back at him with a suspicious, raised eyebrow. It was as if Kratos were secretly mocking him, telling him, 'Correction: Lloyd can use swords, Colette cannot.'

In the end, it was either wooden swords or no swords at all. "Yeah, we'll take those," he responded quietly when the sword vendor had glanced back at him as well, confused.

After being handed a few Gald, the wooden swords were purchased and placed into Lloyd's hesitant hands. And, like some sign from Martel herself, the swords he had originally planned to purchase were taken off the main display board and replaced with a different type of weapon altogether. He watched this take place while walking silently behind Kratos' broad back, heading out of the market area altogether.

"Oh, there you two are," Raine greeted them beside the two-story inn. In one hand was a sack laden with gels, antidotes, and food for impromptu meals. "Perfect timing. I'm ready to leave whenever you two are."

"Yes, let's leave now," Kratos decided, not even bothering to let Lloyd, the _Chosen_, have a say in the matter.

Some pilgrimage this was turning out to be...

*******************

*Whew, there it is! As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! Please review if you liked it. Things will be picking up next chapter.*


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